And We Will Learn To Love Again
by cdevrose
Summary: The river felt as smooth as silk on his skin, welcoming him into its depths as Stiles waded in up to his chin. He didn't open his eyes once, his rational side that thought of his father, Scott, and his friends pushed away deep into the darkness surrounding his heart. He brought the corners of his mouth up in a small smile before taking the final step into total submersion. Sterek
1. Chapter 1

"That's Heather."

The words shot around like bullets in Stiles' head, pounding into his skull while he tried to focus his attention on the lifeless body of his childhood best friend. Her throat was slashed ear to ear and the side of her head was solidly bashed in, but her pale face looked calm and peaceful, an odd contrast to the gruesomeness of her injuries. He raised his head to look at Ms. McCall standing at the end of the table, his eyes beginning to fill with hot tears as she pulled the thin sheet back over her head.

"Stiles… I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine."

His mind barely registered her words as he spun on his heel and walked out of the morgue, navigating his way through the long, too-familiar hallways of the hospital and out onto the pavement outside. His body was working on autopilot as he fished his keys out of his pocket and climbed into his Jeep, driving out of the parking lot and screeching out onto the empty street with absolutely no destination in mind.

Stiles felt his inner foundations, the ones he had worked so hard to build and solidify after everything that had been happening since Scott's transformation, crumbling inside of him. Heather is dead. Heather, the only happy tie to his childhood remaining after the death of his mom. He felt the hot, burning tears beginning to work themselves back to the surface of his emptying brown eyes as he felt more and more of his control slipping away. Anger suddenly overwhelmed his body as he swerved the Jeep to the side of the road and parked, scrambling out of the car to take off deep into the woods, running quickly and breathlessly away from town.

Nothing good can ever come out of that place anymore. There's only death and pain and loss, and Stiles has had enough of that for his lifetime. Everything keeps escalating out of his control. He kept running until the orange glow of the sunset skimming along the top of the trees reached his subconscious. Minutes, seconds, hours later, he found himself stopped at the edge of a large river just as the sun dipped below the tree line and his world plunged into darkness.

The silence in the woods was utterly overwhelming to his weak human senses. He closed his eyes and attempted to breathe normally, taking in the deep aroma of oak and moss while listening to the river quietly rush in front of his feet. His body began to move, all semblance of reasoning flitting away from his half-hearted grasp as he gasped at the feeling of the cold water rushing over his aching calves and ankles. He let his mind go completely as he took another slow step forward, allowing the darkness to reach his knees, his hips, his chest. The feeling of the water rising around his body as he continued walking deeper into the river was intoxicating and calming and exhilarating all at once.

The river felt as smooth as silk on his skin, welcoming him into its depths as Stiles waded in up to his chin. He didn't open his eyes once, his rational side that thought of his father, Scott, and his friends pushed away deep into the darkness surrounding his heart. He brought the corners of his mouth up in a small smile before taking one more step into the river and completely submerging himself in the dark, calming relief of the water before he let go entirely and breathed in.

XxxX

"_Stiles…. Come on Stiles, don't do this…"_

His deep reverie was interrupted by the sound of an incessant voice shouting far away one second, yet right beside him the next. It was impossible to distinguish anything in the swirling darkness he was floating in.

_Stop yelling. I'm tired. _The voice only grew louder as Stiles tried to go back to sleep.

"_Stay with me."_

He felt a tightness in his chest as this stranger who knew his name tried pushing oxygen into his unresponsive lungs. _I'm too tired. Please stop. _He felt a sharp pain over his midline where two hands were pushing on his sternum, working his exhausted heart that was too weak to pump. _Stop_…

A white-hot flash of pain shot through his chest as he started forcefully coughing, expelling the water from his burning lungs and gasping in what felt like gallons of the dry forest air. He felt the two hands quickly roll him onto his side as he vomited the watery contents of his stomach onto the ground, one hand firmly rubbing the middle of his back to help expel any leftover water from his saturated lungs.

He stayed on the riverbank like that until he finally stopped puking, the mysterious hand never leaving the center of his back as two strong arms wrapped around him, picking his limp body up and carrying him through the woods as Stiles floated in and out of hazy consciousness.

He awoke to a bright light invading his vision and a feeling of all-over warmth enveloping his body. Stiles slowly opened his heavy eyes, blinking to adjust to the light he now realized was the sun shining through a dirty window above the bed. The bed... He looked down to his chest, examining the plain gray comforter that lay on top of his mostly naked body. Peeking under the covers, he saw that only his boxers remained on his body that was still slightly caked in dirt from the bottom of the river.

Stiles sat up quickly, the memories of last night coming back to him in one big wall of emotions. Suddenly the air was gone from his chest, replaced with the feeling of the thick slushing of mucky water. He started to gasp for air, panic taking over all of his senses as the feeling of the water in his lungs suffocated him with the memories. He closed his eyes just as the door to his room opened and the same strong hand from the riverbank was placed on his shoulder.

"Breathe, Stiles."

The voice was deep and commanding. He knew that voice. Stiles opened his eyes to see Derek sitting next to him on the bed, staring at him with an unreadable look as he tried to collect his breathing using only Derek's firm hand to keep him grounded. Eventually his gasping turned into deep, shaky breaths, and all too soon the hand was gone and its owner was walking across the room and already halfway through the door.

"Derek…" Stiles rasped, his voice damaged from the water.

Derek stopped and turned his head slightly, but he didn't reply. He couldn't look at Stiles, not yet. The rage building up at his actions would have definitely caused unknown amounts of physical harm to the boy. He took a few deep breaths, steadying himself as much as possible before he turned around.

"You drowned yourself." He felt the anger building again at this infuriating teenager lying in his bed. "What. The. HELL. Were. You. Thinking." He stalked closer to him with every annunciated word, taking in the growing look of fear on Stiles' face. He stopped when his face was only inches from Stiles', inhaling the overwhelming scent of fear rolling off the boy in waves.

_Good,_ he thought. He should be afraid.

Out of nowhere, however, Derek was taken aback at the loud sob that choked its way out of the boy's mouth. He suddenly felt arms around him, squeezing him tight as the boy buried his face in Derek's shirt and opened the floodgates.

Derek grunted, not expecting the sudden tactile show of emotions and only barely managed to peel the boy's arms from himself without causing him any pain. Grabbing his wrists, he forced Stiles' hands down into the comforter as he stepped up, turned on his heel and walked out of the room. He decided to slam the door for good measure.

Standing outside the room, however, he stayed and listened to the muffled sobs that Stiles was futilely attempting to cover up. He slunk his body down the wooden plane, resting on the ground for only moments before he stood back up and swung the door open.

Stiles was looking at him with a broad mix of fear and shame, attempting to pull the comforter up around his head as Derek moved gracefully back over to the bed and grabbed it from his hands. He used the thick blanket to wrap around Stiles' body, making sure to cocoon him shoulders to toes in the warmth before bringing him into his arms.

He'd never been good at comforting people. That was a well-known fact, to absolutely everyone. But Derek could see something terrifying in the kid's eyes, something he hadn't seen in almost six years when Laura ate a whole wolfsbane plant a month after the fire. He looked completely blank, no trace of his usual perky and snarky persona lurking behind his golden brown eyes.

He looked like a person who had completely given up.

As the sobs began quieting and his body started to still again, Derek heard Stiles utter a single resigned sentence into his chest.

"You should have let me die."

He was up and out of the room again, already jumping down the spiral staircase and crashing into the study as he tried to suppress the barrage of emotions he felt at that sentence. Stiles couldn't have known, there was no way. He couldn't have known that Laura said the same exact sentence to him after he had saved her too.

Either way, it felt like a knife in his gut.

XxxX

Stiles stared at the door blankly, his eyes taking in the chipping gray paint on the wood as he listened to Derek slamming things around the floor below him. He felt no need to censor his words to Derek, no need to protect him from his feelings because he couldn't give less of a shit about what Derek thought about him.

He was sick of lying to everyone, especially to his father and Scott. He was sick of trying to convince everyone that he was okay all of the time and sick of them always believing him so quickly. He wished someone would notice and see through his lies, because it hurt too much that no one even cared enough to realize that he was dead inside.

But in typical Stiles fashion, he would go back to pretending it was all okay and shove the events of last night in a dark hole inside himself. He wasn't going to make anyone worry about him, no matter how much he wanted someone to, because that's just who he is. He puts everyone before himself, every single time, unless he absolutely can't help it. He was selfless, happy, quirky- yet simultaneously broken, tortured, exhausted, and done.

If he only ever showed three of those attributes to other people, well, he could live with that.

For now.

Stiles stood up from the bed slowly, determination set in his face as he searched for a suitable outfit in Derek's dresser. He found a pair of dark, faded jeans that just barely fit, but the only shirts he could find were all too big. He decided on a loose black T-shirt that smelled faintly of grass before slipping it over his head and starting down the stairs.

He locked his eyes on the door, determined to get out of the loft before Derek could say anything. He was almost out, his fingers wrapping around the steel handle before Derek's words stopped him.

"What do you think you're doing."

He turned around slowly, looking him dead in the eyes before replying.

"Leaving. You've done your civic duty to humanity by rescuing me. I'm not your burden anymore."

"Well unfortunately for me, you still are. You tried to kill yourself. No, actually, you didn't just try. You _succeeded_. And if I hadn't been out on a patrol and you hadn't been just a half a mile from my route, then you wouldn't be alive right now."

Stiles jerked his eyes over from the spot they were drilling into the wall beside Derek. "Like I said before: You should have let me die." He turned on his heel to leave, but his elbow was forcefully caught from behind and he swung his other fist around to hit his attacker. Derek easily caught it in his other hand and began squeezing until the circulation to his fingers was cut off. He began to yell as he pushed the boy against the door.

"Maybe I should have! Maybe you're nothing but a monumental pain in my ass most of the time, but you have other people who want you around, believe it or not. So look me in the eyes and tell me you won't go home and just try again. Because you're not leaving until I hear a steady heartbeat behind those words."

Stiles wrenched his arms, but they were caught tight in vice grips and weren't going anywhere. With each movement of struggle, Derek only pinned his arms back tighter, causing him to yelp in pain before bringing his knee up to hit him where it would count. Derek was quicker though, bringing up his own knee to block Stiles before he could make contact. With three of his four limbs pinned still, he slackened his muscles slowly and calmed his breathing.

Cold, cinnamon eyes met bright red as he practically spat the words in Derek's face. "I won't go home and kill myself tonight. Or any night, in the near future. Now get the fuck off of me and let me go."

No upticks. Derek felt the familiar pull of the knife in his gut as he released his grip, watching as Stiles ran barefoot out of the loft in his clothing.

XxxX

When Stiles finally got home after walking for two hours, barefoot, he was barely able to make it up the stairs and into the bathroom before he collapsed on the floor.

The rug felt nice under his face- soothing and relaxing and warm, a nice relief from the strong wind that had been pelting his face the whole walk home. He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them before closing his eyes and allowing himself to relax for a moment. The stretch on his hamstrings felt nice, but after a few minutes he knew he needed to clean the blood off his feet.

He got up slowly, allowing his head to adjust to the change in altitude by gripping the countertop tightly with both hands. As soon as the dizziness subsided enough, he opened his eyes and looked at his reflection for the first time since last night.

The sight staring back at him made him audibly gasp. No wonder Derek had been so mad.

His eyes looked completely dull, something he had only seen in himself once before, when his mother had just died. His cheeks were flushed with windburn, and dirt was caked in the edges of his hair from where his head had rested on the muddy riverbank.

But the most shocking thing to him was the scratches. Stiles counted at least three separate sets of angry red lines contrasting deeply with his creamy pale skin, starting right below the edge of his chin on each side of his neck and ending about halfway down his chest, from what he could see under Derek's V-neck.

He tilted his head to the right and leaned forward, attempting to get a better look at the worst set. One of the lines had re-opened slightly, either during the struggle at Derek's or the walk home, because a drop of blood was dripping down his neck and soaking into the dark material of the T-shirt. He quickly stripped it over his head and took stock of the rest of his injuries underneath.

There were dark purple bruises over his sternum, where his chest had been pumped and cracked during CPR. Dirt was flaking off all over, settling in a thin layer of dust around Stiles' feet as he hurriedly brushed himself off the best that he could. The ends of the scratch marks looked jagged, as if he had changed direction roughly at the very end of clawing into his delicate skin. The parts that were caked in dirt were starting to look angry and inflamed, so he turned around and started the shower to start warming it up.

Unbuttoning his pants, he pushed them down around his ankles before gently pulling his feet out of the leg holes. The soles of his feet were covered in scratches and blood from the pavement and gravel he had been forced to walk through, and he could also feel a small shard of glass sticking out of his left sole.

He sat down on the toilet seat with a pair of tweezers, giving his feet the necessary attention as the room started to fog up with steam. For once in his life his mind was completely blank, no insane thoughts racing through his skull as he focused completely on the task at hand. It was registering in the back of his mind that this wasn't normal and he might be in shock, but no matter how hard his subconscious tried he couldn't bring himself to understand or care.

He stepped in the shower, allowing the scorching hot water to run over his aching muscles while he blankly watched the brown and rusty red filth flow down into the shower drain. By the time Stiles actually started washing himself, he had been in the shower so long just standing and staring that the water was getting cold. He snapped himself out of it and quickly washed his hair and body, turning off the water just as it reached arctic levels and stepping out to wrap his towel around himself.

He opened the door to the bathroom quickly and walked across the hall to his room, dumping the dirty clothes unceremoniously on the floor to blend in with the rest of his mess before sliding on clean boxers and slipping under the covers of his bed.

He partially realized that it was only four in the afternoon, but he had never felt so tired and worn in his life. He closed his eyes and attempted to fall asleep, but the silence in his head was deafening.

It took about a half hour before everything hit him, and suddenly he was clutching his pillow and sobbing as all of his emotions slammed through him at once.

He felt enraged. Enraged at this life he was living, enraged at Scott for getting him into all this, enraged at Derek for saving him. He didn't need saving, he needed release.

He was out of bed and walking down the stairs before his mind even registered that he was up. He stalked into the kitchen, shoveling through drawers until he found what he was looking for.

Taking a deep breath, he held the blade of the box cutter up to the tender skin on the inside of his thigh, just below the fabric of his boxers. He told Derek he wouldn't try and kill himself again… But shit, he didn't promise anything about this.

With a slow pull of his wrist Stiles dragged the blade over his skin, applying just enough pressure to break the surface. He gasped quietly at the pain, watching as a small drop of blood rolled down the inside of his leg and dripped to the floor at the bend of his knee.

He quickly realigned the blade, repeating the process over and over again until the inside of his left thigh was covered in red, crisscrossed slices. A dull throb was emitting from the patchwork, but Stiles barely noticed as he sat down on the floor, put his head in his hands and just stared into space as the emotions left his body.

No, he couldn't kill himself. He couldn't protect himself, and he couldn't protect anyone he loved. He couldn't fight back, he couldn't bring himself to care anymore. But _this_- this he could do.

Stiles stood up, cleaned the small amount of blood off the floor and most of it off himself before calmly walking back to his room, plastering a hollow, empty smile on his face that couldn't reach his eyes anymore before climbing under the covers and shutting out the world.

XxxX

Stiles woke up the next morning to the blaring of his alarm and the pain pounding all over his body. His feet were throbbing from the gravel probably still embedded in his flesh, his lungs were rasping deep in his aching chest with every inhale, his head was spinning and his inner thigh was absolutely _burning_.

He honestly couldn't bring himself to care, though, because it felt good. The pain felt solid and real, and he found himself hoping that it could be something he would be able to fall back on when everything else got hazy and tumbled from his hands. Stiles sat up slowly, reaching over to grab his Adderall before relaxing back onto his pillow. He rolled the bottle absently in his hands, re-reading the label of side effects and dosages like he had hundreds of times before.

Before he could overthink it, he got to his feet and walked into the bathroom, uncapping the lid as he held the bottle precariously over the toilet. His eyes watched his hand as it tilted at a glacial pace, spilling the little orange pills into the water with little plunks as they broke the surface.

Stiles sat back on the edge of the tub, clutching the empty bottle in one hand as he watched the tablets dissolve into clouds of orange smoke and settle in a layer over the bottom of the bowl. Something in his head was screaming at him, but it was coming through a thick fog and he didn't feel like trying to focus on it. He sat there until every pill diffused before reaching out and flushing, ignoring the shrill sound ringing in his skull as he got up, got ready, and drove to school.

It didn't get better throughout the day. Everything that reached his ears sounded like he was hearing it from the bottom of a swimming pool. People approached him in the hallway; people who had never talked to him before to say "Sorry about Heather!" or "If there's anything I can do, I'm here for you," or some other bullshit cliché that he didn't even register. Stiles nodded periodically throughout their consolations, waiting the appropriate amount of time before he could make some excuse and walk off to the next class or the next sad, smiling face staring at him throughout the school.

By the time Chemistry rolled around, the sound in his head was reaching the point of being debilitating. He sat down in his seat next to Scott, squeezing his eyes shut and bringing a hand up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Scott was talking; he could hear him and even make out the occasional word or two, but all of his senses were being taken over by the screeching and it hurt so much less to just block him out.

He felt a hand on his arm but he just shrugged it off, running his fingers through the mop of hair on his head and focusing on his breathing.

In for four, out for eight.

In for four, out for eight.

In for fou-

Stiles jumped, heart pumping out of his chest as a ruler slapped his desk inches from his arms. Anger was building under his skin like an earthquake as he looked up into Mr. Harris' scowling face. His lips were moving furiously as he got closer, screaming right into Stiles' personal space when suddenly the screeching in his head stopped and he could hear Harris' every. last. word.

"-INCOMPETENT little children, such as yourself, NEVER making a SINGLE effort to-"

"SHUT UP!"

The room went completely silent as Stiles jumped up and stood face to face with Harris, chest heaving with anger as he stood at his full height, just short of the teacher's. Harris only smirked as he muttered "Detention after school, Stilinski. This whole week. Make yourself useful for once in your trivial, meaningless life and walk yourself down to the Principal's office."

"Over my dead fucking body."

Stiles grabbed his bag and ran out, ignoring Scott's shouts of protest fading behind him as he bolted into the nearest bathroom and locked the door. He yanked his hoodie off, pillowing it into a ball and pushing it into his face to muffle the sounds of his screaming.

He kept the sweatshirt smashed to his face, long after he stopped yelling and after his body began starving for oxygen. Black was seeping around the edges of his vision before he finally dropped it onto his lap, leaving his hands hovering in mid-air.

Stiles wasn't sure how long he sat there before his hands started moving. It could have been minutes or hours; time was too distant from his grasp to make any sense. He only knew that one minute he was staring into the stall door almost catatonically, and the next he was scratching deep gouges into his arms. His arms were crossed across his chest, fingers starting at the opposing shoulders before digging in and pulling all the way to his wrists before pulling off and repeating.

He didn't bleed very much, since his nails weren't long enough to do much more than scrape off the top of the skin, but it did the trick. His breathing began to slow and his mind stopped racing as he focused all of his attention to the pain in his arms, letting the overwhelming feeling of raw nerves being ravaged drown out everything else.

It was the sound of the bathroom door opening and footsteps padding across the hard tile that caused Stiles to snap out of his stupor. His head snapped up from where it had been resting on the back wall, and he hurried to get his hoodie back on before the footsteps stopped directly outside of his stall.

"Stiles? You in there?"

Worry was evident in Scott's voice, and a little part of him cringed for the way he knew he had been treating his best friend all day. It was soon forgotten, though, at the sound of heavy sniffing coming from the other side of the door.

"Stiles... why do I smell blood?"

_Shit. Shit shit shit_. Stiles pressed his arms into himself, clearing his throat before answering.

"It's, uh, it's nothing, I just accidently cut my hand on a loose screw in the door. I'm fine!" Stiles quietly fished his keychain out of his pocket as he spoke, pulling out the smaller of the two blades on his swiss army knife and quickly digging it into the skin of his hand. He let out an inaudible hiss at the pain before jumping as the door rattled.

"Let me in, man. I can look at it, I've gotten a lot better at wound care working with Deaton."

He slipped the knife back into his pocket while simultaneously squeezing his fist, watching a thick trail of blood run down the pale skin of his forearm. "Naw dude, I seriously got it. Can you just… Can I be alone for a little? I just…" Stiles trailed off, leaning his head against the stall wall and matching his breathing up with Scott's.

Nine breaths later, Scott sighed loudly, and Stiles could picture the pinched face he knew his best friend was expressing.

"Yeah, Stiles. Just come find me if you need me, okay? You don't have to go through any of this alone."

If only that was the truth. "Thanks bro."

There was a hesitant pat on the door, before the tips of Scott's shoes disappeared from Stiles' line of vision under the door and the taps of footfall were lost outside to the rumbling of the class change in the hallway.

Stiles didn't cry. He sat and hypnotized himself watching the blood drip from his elbow until the last shred of his anger leaked out in a full drop, curled down his arm and then fell to the floor with a resolute _splat_.

XxxX

Mr. Harris had told Stiles to go home that first evening when he had shown up for detention. Guessing from the pinched look on the teacher's face that was just shy of looking guilty, he could only guess that someone had told him about Heather after he had run off. It had only been two days after Harris sent him home, but Stiles was feeling increasingly irritated as each moment passed.

He didn't like using Heather as an excuse. Yeah, she was the proverbial end of his long, long rope (which, bad comparison to be using right now) but there were too many things leading up to this for Stiles to even think about expanding on for anyone else's benefit. So if he just rolled along with the excuse to get out of detention, he hoped she wouldn't hold it against him. And he was sure she would have gotten a kick out of seeing Harris squirm, if he had ever gotten the chance to tell her about him.

The small smirk Stiles had been sporting as he left the school dropped at that thought. Nothing sobered him more quickly than the reminder of all the time he'd lost with so many people. Of all the separate ways he didn't capitalize on the time he was given... It felt like a kick to the nuts.

He had so many chances, too. Literally endless opportunities to pick up his phone and call Heather, see how she was doing. Hang out. Maybe if they had hung out before the night of her party, she would have never been taken… They might have even dated, sealed the deal before virgin sacrificing even became an issue. If Stiles had only texted her any of the thousands of times he had the opportunity, she might still be alive.

But that didn't even compare with how he felt about losing his mother. He was mad at her for so long after she told him how sick she was, causing her to go through chemo without the support of her son… He was just so angry that she didn't tell him sooner, that she was dying, that she was_ leaving_ him… He wasted two whole months in his anger. 61 days with her that he was never getting back, all because he was selfish and scared and throwing massive fits any time his father tried to get him to the hospital.

He only had two weeks left with her once he finally understood how monumentally_ stupid _he had been.

Two weeks to try and mend what he did to his mother and father before he was alone with her on a Sunday afternoon and she pulled his sleeping body closer to her, kissed his cheek and then stopped living, just like that.

Talk about lost time.

Stiles didn't realize he was crying until his hands started shaking the wheel back and forth with the force of his sobs. He just managed to make it around the corner and pull his jeep into the driveway and into park before he dropped his head down into his trembling hands and heaved with his attempts to breathe.

He vaguely recognized the feeling of warm hands on his shoulder and side, rubbing circles into his clothing before the hands abruptly halted and dug into his flesh, shaking his body with an increasing urgency. Stiles tried focusing on his breathing, but he couldn't pull a full breath in anymore as the black crept in around the edges of his vision. He heard a muddled voice yelling beside him through what sounded like a brick wall, but he was only focusing on his own white-knuckled hands as he was pulled out of the seat and the darkness enveloped his eyes.

_"Stiles… come on bro, wake up. You can do it. Just open your eyes. Is that a twitch? Yep, okay, you're finally up, thank GOD."_

Stiles wearily blinked one eye open, squinting into the light of his room as he took in the sight of his best friend looming over him. From what he could tell, they were lying side by side on his bed, Scott resting his body on one arm as he looked at Stiles with his trademark worried expression #11.

"Welcome back, dude. Haven't seen one that bad in a long time."

Stiles groaned. "How long was I out?"

"About an hour. I made you some soup, but I, uh, kind of… ate it." Scott smiled apologetically before sitting up and fiddling with a loose thread on the off-white comforter. "So what triggered it?" He didn't look up at Stiles, just kept fiddling with the string as he waited for an answer.

Stiles just watched his hands twirl and pluck before he spoke. "I, uh, almost hit a deer. Just really freaked me out was all. It's been a really stressful week, and I guess things just bubbled over… You know?"

Scott raised his eyes and stared at Stiles when he heard the telltale _blip_ of his heartbeat. Stiles shrunk down a little, avoiding eye contact like the plague before he flipped his legs around and sat on the edge of the bed. "So yeah, um, thanks bro. I take it my dad's not home since he's not in here with my old anxiety meds and every kind of junk food that exists?" (That was his father's go-to plan for every time Stiles had an attack… Suffice to say it was usually pretty helpful.)

Scott stood up and walked around the bed, plopping himself down beside Stiles and turning completely sideways to face the side of his head. "Yeah, he hasn't gotten home yet. And I won't say anything about this to him, because I trust you to know how to get it when you need help. So you don't have to tell me why you really had the attack, but you know you can if you want to, and you know I won't judge whatever the reason is. You _know_ that, Stiles. You can talk to me about anything."

Stiles nodded, a small tilt of the head before he stood up and walked over to his dresser. He felt the residual itch irritating the skin of his arms, signaling the re-opening of what he could only guess was the deeper middle scratch he sported. He sorted around for a hoodie, pulled out his favorite red piece and turned around to find Scott standing only inches behind him.

"Jesus FUCK Scott, what are you trying to do, give me another panic attack?!"

Scott furrowed his eyebrows, grabbed Stiles' more affected arm and started to turn the palm over. "Is this thing still bleeding? I smell blood. I'm serious, let me look at it. It could get infected."

Stiles yanked his arm out of Scott's grasp, keeping his hand in a balled-up fist as he tried to subtly put pressure on the actual source of the bleeding. "It's fine Scott, it just re-opened or something. Seriously, I have my first-aid kit in the bathroom. God knows how many times I've used that thing in the past year…"

Scott's face shifted into a determined focus as he reached out again and held on to Stiles' wrist. "Come on, if it's still bleeding you obviously didn't do something right. I'm gonna bandage it, then I'll leave if you want me to, okay?" He started pulling Stiles along into the hallway, but they didn't make it more than two steps before Stiles twisted in a full circle under Scott's arms, wrenching himself from Scott's hold.

Scott spun around and blew out a breath. "Stiles, what's-"

He stopped when he took in the expression on his best friend's face. Stiles was suddenly fuming, eyes wide and teeth _actually bared_ as he stood in the doorway of his bedroom clenching his fists.

"I said I got it. Go _home_ Scott."

Scott froze. "Stiles, I'm sorry, I didn't... What's wrong?"

Stiles clenched his eyes shut, taking in a few deep breaths as his demeanor began to visibly relax out of his defensive stance. "Fuck. It's fine, it's just been a bad day. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that…" He brought his hands up to his face, scrubbing them across his skin before sliding them into his hair and grabbing onto the longer pieces.

"I get it, yeah… Can I do anything?"

Stiles sighed. "I just really wanna be alone right now, if that's cool. It's not you, Scott. Never you. I… I'm really sorry."

Scott reached out, hovered his hand over Stiles' shoulder before he sighed and allowed himself to be pulled into a short hug. "Call me if you need anything. I'll be home."

Stiles nodded into his shoulder. Scott squeezed his arm once before he disappeared out the door, leaving Stiles standing in the middle of his room listlessly staring until darkness closed in and he dropped to his knees on the carpet.

He woke up a few hours later, the light from the afternoon sun casting the grayish-yellow tint that precedes the onset of a bad thunderstorm across the furniture and walls of his room. The carpet was warm under his cheek, and he rubbed it absently before stretching his limbs out and moaning. Cramps wracked his leg muscles as Stiles forced himself to stand up, swaying from the altitude change before plopping himself straight down in his computer chair.

For the first time since that Monday, he found himself mildly regretting flushing his Adderall. The effects of withdrawal were there; he could feel them fighting his senses every moment of the last three days. The exhaustion was brutal. Lacrosse practice was out of the question- Stiles was fairly positive that if he was knocked down on the field at this point he wouldn't be able to get back up. Everything was aching, and the dreams he was having were starting to worry him with their eccentricity. They felt like what he imagined a bad acid trip would feel like, and he had woken up more than one night sweating through his sheets.

If he could get past the first week, Stiles knew how good he could feel. How good he _would_ feel. It wasn't the first time he had gone off his medication, but the last time he had had been so long ago he could barely remember it. The freedom from foggy thoughts and memories alone would be worth it, though.

Sometimes it was better to feel too much than to feel too little. At least when he was feeling everything he had the option to feel nothing, and he had methods now, methods to dull or to excite, depending on his mindset going into it. Pain could take, but it could also give.

He had options. And to hell if he wasn't going to use them.

Stiles climbed out of the chair, ambling across the hallway and into the bathroom as silently as he could manage. He was in the middle of hushedly creaking open the drawer with his first-aid kit in it when the sound of the Sheriff's snore reverberated through the bathroom wall.

John had been taking longer shifts lately, trying to cover for the lack of staff at the station from the Matt debacle. Multiple times Stiles had trudged downstairs in the late evenings and early mornings to find the Sheriff passed out on the couch, plate of food lying forgotten over his stomach from being too tired to make it to his bed. They hadn't been able to hire as many deputies as they needed yet, and Stiles worried constantly about the stress it was putting on his heart.

But then Stiles remembered that it's his fault that Matt was even at the station, and he felt his stomach drop from the guilt of being the cause of another person's misfortunes.

He pulled the drawer fully open, not worrying about the noise anymore. His father was coming home off of a double and nothing short of an earthquake could wake him.

The sleeve of his hoodie was adhered to sections of his arm, causing the afflicted scratch to re-open for the third time in as many days. Stiles went to work on it, cleaning and bandaging the area faster than he was proud to admit he could. He loved the pack, really, but they had tendencies to forget he was just human. He never let on though; he would always choose to suffer in silence if it spared someone else more pain.

Stiles could handle his own pain, but he couldn't take other's. He got that from his mother, a fact that his dad frequently used to mumble at nights when the whiskey dug in its roots during the first few years after her death. He said a lot of things in an alcohol haze, things Stiles wished he could forget but he knew would be burned into his memory until the day he died. There were things you just didn't tell a ten year-old kid, but it wasn't like he could have pretended he was young and naïve anymore. He hadn't been there for her when she needed him, and that was something that would haunt both him and his father for years.

The sky was darkening into a sickly grayish black hue by the time Stiles headed back into his room. The rumbling of distant thunder was echoing through the air, and the atmosphere was thick with humidity and electricity. He padded over to his window, opening it from the small crack he usually allowed to its full height so that he could lean out and breathe in the charged air.

Thunderstorms were something magical to Stiles; however magical in the natural sense and not the supernatural. He always loved the tingle that he felt flowing through him in the evening air before a particularly nasty one hit.

He had hazy memories of a time in kindergarten when he and Heather were out on the edge of the woods, chasing each other in some made-up game that they always used to think would be the most fun they would ever have. She had just made her way to the edge of her mom's house, leaving Stiles only feet from the tree line when lightning from the incoming storm struck the statuesque maple directly behind him. The strike knocked him down and back, shining brighter than any light Stiles had ever seen and enveloping everything around him in white. More than anything, though- more than the shouting, the light, the trip to the hospital - he remembers the feel of the electricity running through him, taking control of his mind and motor control for the short few minutes afterwards.

Stiles had experimented with weed once before, when he and Scott decided it would be a good idea to light up a badly-rolled joint in the woods and manage to get lost only ten feet from the Jeep. The effects were nice, and he liked the feeling of blissful unawareness, but it didn't even compare in the slightest to the way he felt during the lightning incident. He had a profound feeling that nothing would ever make him feel that way again, with the possible exception of him ever getting The Bite.

Regardless, the charged pre-storm air always hit him with modest bouts of nostalgia and excitement.

Stiles slipped on an old pair of running shoes and a waterproof phone case before heading out into the darkening skies and starting to run.

XxxX

"Something's wrong with Stiles." Scott looked around at the pack gathered in Derek's loft, eyeing each of them individually as if searching for some sign of guilt. Most of them just looked at him questioningly, not yet seeing what he was getting at.

Scott let out an exasperated sigh before continuing. "Seriously? None of you have noticed how off he's been recently? I haven't heard a single sarcastic comment from him in a week."

Erica was the next to speak up, observing everyone from her position on the stairs. "His childhood best friend just died, he's probably still upset about that. I'm sure he'll be back to his annoying self in no time, so maybe we should just take this as the blessing in disguise that it is?"

Scott glared at her, eyes flashing yellow as she seemed to shrink down into her shoulders just slightly. "First of all Erica, nice. Real nice. But no, I think it's more than just that. It's like he's a whole different person. He's barely speaking to anyone, he's on edge whenever he _does_ talk to me, and he hasn't shown up to lacrosse all week. He blew up in Harris' face when he was getting yelled at, and he _never_ does that. This isn't like him. I haven't seen him even close to acting like this since…" Scott trailed off, leaving the rest of the thought unspoken.

"Since his mom died."

It was Lydia who spoke up this time, but her voice was much quieter than usual, proving how deep in thought she was. "I can't really see how Heather could be affecting him this much, though."

Scott shook his head, letting his slightly longer hair brush the edge of his forehead. "She shouldn't be. The birthday party was the first time they had really talked or seen each other in years. No, this is definitely off for him. Has anyone talked to him?"

The room was silent as everyone took turns looking at each other for confirmation. Derek sat in the back, keeping his expression blank as Scott's eyes trailed over him. It wasn't his story to tell.

"Where is he, by the way? Aren't these meetings mandatory?" Allison piped up from beside Scott.

Derek simply shrugged. "They are. And if you all could pay attention to something other than gossiping for more than two seconds, you would have heard his heartbeat half-way up the steps already."

As if on cue, the small sound of footsteps became louder as Stiles reached the top of the steps and stopped outside the door. He took a single deep breath, steadying himself before sliding open the door and quickly shutting it behind him. Everyone watched as he silently made his way to the couch and sat next to Scott before they all remembered to start talking.

Scott leaned over, speaking in hushed tones. "Stiles, what's wrong? You're still acting really off, and I saw you run off into the bathroom again on Thursday between classes… Is this about Heather?"

Stiles looked up, and gave Scott an off-putting smile. "I'm fine, Scott. Really, I'm over it."

"No, you're clearly not. Whatever is going on, you know you can tell me."

Stiles jerked his smile higher, but it still didn't reach his eyes. "I'm okay, seriously. You don't need to worry."

Scott started to argue again. "Stiles, I'm serious. Something's up, I can tell. You don't have to keep hiding it from me. You're my brother, and I love you… You know that."

Scott reached a hand out and set it on Stiles' thigh, giving it a reassuring squeeze. The smile dropped from Stiles' face in an instant, revealing a coldness behind his eyes that made Scott flinch. "It's not your problem Scott. Leave it alone." With that, he focused his attention on the meeting, refusing to acknowledge the pointed stare burning into the side of his head as he moved his leg out from under Scott's grasp.

Scott sat back with a small huff after a few minutes, observing Stiles out of the corner of his eye.

Which is how he ended up noticing Derek, staring holes into Stiles for the rest of the meeting, apparently not caring if anyone saw him as he fumed silently in the corner.

XxxX

It was Tuesday before Stiles found himself back in the kitchen, pulling the box cutter out of its drawer by the silverware and walking back up the stairs into his room.

The angry red lines on his inner thigh had faded to raised pink ridges, strewed out in cluttered, crisscrossed patterns over his pale skin. He had been hurried and rushed a week ago, needing to find a release of everything that had been building up. Today, though- today he wanted order. He wanted to feel the sharp slice of the blade as it tugged through his skin, wanted to create perfect parallel lines that would be deep and kept and admired later.

Stiles never wanted to forget these feelings. He felt like he had some semblance of control, for once being the only one to cause himself pain. He didn't get the rush of endorphins that had been described over the internet in his research, he simply did it for the feeling of control.

Because control was the one thing he knew he didn't have anymore.

He let his head fall backwards as he dug into his flesh for the first cut, reveling in the feeling before losing himself entirely to the splitting pull of the blade.

He lay on the floor for hours, not falling asleep but not entirely conscious as blood continued to trickle from his wounds. Every time they would begin to close he would reach his hands down and pull at the edges of the skin, re-opening the deep slices over and over until he started to feel woozy from the blood loss.

By the time evening rolled around, Stiles was still on the floor, but he had pulled up the towels he had set under his legs and used a clean one to wipe the blood from his thighs. He shoved everything but the blade in a small black trash bag, slipping it under his bed and sliding the blade under his mattress.

His head was buzzing still, but he wasn't feeling as nauseous as he had been earlier. Reaching beside him, he pulled out his first aid kit from his bedside drawer and began cleaning and bandaging his leg just before he heard the downstairs door open and shut.

_Shitttt_, Stiles thought as he hurriedly plastered a large band-aid over his skin. He pulled up his pants and had just managed to crawl up on his bed before a quiet knock sounded on his door and his dad poked his head in.

"Hey, I'm home from work. Did you have any plans for dinner tonight?"

Stiles raised himself up to his elbows and peered over at his dad before replying.

"Nope, I was planning on heating up a pizza or something if you were gonna be out late. Are you home for good?"

John looked Stiles up and down once, worry knitting through his eyebrows. "Yeah, I'll be here. Are you okay? You look kind of pale."

"Yeah, I'm good dad. It was just a really long day."

He stepped into the room and sat on the side of the bed before reaching a hand up to Stiles' forehead and frowning. "You feel clammy. Do you think you're coming down with something?"

Stiles shook his head a little too quickly and mentally berated himself with an internal face slap. "Nah, I think I might have eaten something bad at lunch. Scott spent half of Economics on the toilet, so I seriously wouldn't be surprised. Anything happen at work today?"

His dad paused for a second before nodding his head, hesitating before opening his mouth to speak. "We, uh, found another body. A girl who went missing a few nights ago while camping in the woods with her girlfriend. She was… she was killed the same way as Heather."

Stiles visibly flinched at that, suddenly upset at himself for directing the subject of conversation that way. John moved to put his hand on his shoulder, but Stiles slid out from under his reach and stood up in one fluid movement. He took a step towards the door, but he was still dizzy from earlier and his legs bent awkwardly as he crumpled to the floor.

"Shit kid, are you okay?!" His dad was by his side in an instant, one hand under his triceps and the other on his waist as he helped Stiles get back to his feet.

"Yeah dad, I'm good. I seriously just think it was the chicken. I mean, I really shouldn't have ate it once I noticed that it was still bleeding in places, but I was _hungry_." He said the last sentence in a whine, and it seemed to work for his father because he let out a little chuckle before walking him back to his bed.

"You were never one to turn down food when it was in front of you, kid. I once put a pen in front of you as a baby to go help your mother with something and when I came back the pen cap had mysteriously disappeared… I'm still convinced we should get you x-rayed, because I never found that thing anywhere in the house. Your mom was pretty freaked out, to put it lightly." He sat back a little and sighed, and Stiles watched the tell-tale cloud glaze over his eyes as he got caught up in his thoughts.

"Thanks, Dad. It… you really mean a lot to me, I hope you know that."

He focused his eyes on Stiles' intently, shifting his gaze from eye to eye as if looking for the answer to some question in his mind. "I love you son. I know things have been rough on you lately, for whatever reason, but I want you to know you can come to me about it. Any of it."

Stiles adverted his eyes, trying not to look too guilty as he muttered "I know, Dad. I love you too."

John smiled before getting to his feet, glancing back once more before stepping to the door. "Oh, and Stiles? I'm going to catch the bastard that killed Heather. Don't doubt for one second that he won't come to justice for what he did to her and those other two kids."

Stiles stared at the empty spot by the door where his dad had stood for a good five minutes before clambering out of bed, shutting the door briskly and barely making it back to his mattress before shoving his face in a pillow and screaming.

XxxX

Stiles couldn't pretend that he didn't see Derek shooting daggers at him every time they convened at the loft for a pack meeting. He could, however, blatantly ignore the consistent red-tinged eyes that stalked his movements. Which is exactly what he did, until two days after his last cut when Derek yanked him backwards from walking out the door behind the others.

"What the hell Derek?!"

The man simply kept walking, dragging Stiles' protesting body of flailing limbs angrily behind him as he pulled them both to a seated position on the couch.

"Fuck you, I need to get home. Wait, what are you doing- Hey!"

Derek yanked Stiles' shorts up until the bottom hems were hiked up below his groin, displaying the large white gauze pad covering his left thigh. He ripped up the edge of the bandage, exhibiting the angry red slashes that had yet to heal from his last session. An audible growl worked its way from his chest before he ripped the gauze the rest of the way off, revealing not only the full collection of newer cuts but also the pink ridges of the older ones.

"You mean you need to go home so you can do this again? Not gonna happen."

Stiles simply gaped at him, red rimming his vision before he very loudly slapped Derek across the face. Derek's head didn't even move, and Stiles was fighting to stand against the grasp of iron fingers squeezing his biceps.

"Let me. The fuck. Go."

"_NO._"

Stiles wrenched violently to the side, and the surprise was just enough for him to wriggle out of the Alpha's hands and vault three steps to the door before he was tackled from behind.

He hit the floor with a loud _oomph_, and Derek had his arms twisted behind his back before leaning down and growling in Stiles' ear.

Stiles went still, confused as to what he was trying to do for only moments before it hit him. _Oh_.

"Jesus _Christ_ Derek, I'm not one of your goddamn betas. You can't _make_ me submit to you."

The growl only intensified, but before he was able to reiterate his point he felt sharp, pointy teeth bite down on the back of his neck. Not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to make Stiles gasp with a completely uncalled for mixture of pleasure and pain.

"Fuck, Derek, what the hell was that?!"

The teeth stayed clamped on to his neck, but he felt the soft, warm roll of a tongue smoothing over the skin captured underneath and Stiles had to bite his lip to push back some very inappropriately timed moans. Which is when he really realized what was going on, and _oh. OH_.

"Come back, Derek. It's me, it's Stiles. Pull the wolf back. I know you can hear me."

He felt Derek stiffen, and the teeth suddenly unclamped from the nape of his neck but the growling was still a thing that was very definitely happening.

"That's it big guy, come on. It's just me, I'm here. Pull it in."

Stiles felt the moment that Derek was back, because the rumbling completely stopped and his whole body went totally limp over his own for a brief second before the weight was lifted entirely from his backside.

He wasted no time climbing to his feet, using Derek's momentary confusion to run out the door and make a beeline straight to his Jeep. He groped his pockets for his keys, his face blanching when he realized that Derek must have taken them sometime during their struggle.

Well, fine. If Derek wanted to play that way…

Stiles took off on foot, running the 150-some feet out to the road and veering right into the alleys of Downtown Beacon Hills.

He kept running for almost twenty minutes, making sure to cross his scent through multiple buildings full of people as he cut from alley to alley, working his way back to the general vicinity of the loft after he was sure Derek would be out looking for him for hours.

Sure enough, when he got back up the stairs the door was open and Derek was nowhere to be seen. He sauntered over to the coffee table and grabbed his keys, making sure to take a piece of cold pizza from the fridge before leaving the building and driving off.

Later when he got home, he would analyze why Derek lost control to the wolf. He would stare numbly at his school work before throwing it in the trashcan and lying down. He would pull out the blade and try to think of a single reason why he shouldn't cut into his skin.

And he wouldn't hesitate before pressing down into his flesh and pulling to the left over and over and over as he threw his head back into the pillow and laughed.

XxxX

It was dark out when Stiles opened his eyes again. Glancing down, he let out a sigh at the dried blood crusted to his boxer-clad legs. The towel over his bedspread was actually stuck to the bottom of his thigh, so he started making his way over to the edge of his bed before sucking in a sharp breath.

Glowing red eyes were peering out from the corner diagonal to his bed, irises tracking his movement as he slowly stood and took a wobbly step towards the hallway.

"Stop. Just stop moving."

Stiles paused briefly, but mainly for the fact that a wave of dizziness chose that exact moment to overtake him. He shot a hand out to his bedpost, gripping it with a white-knuckled fist and steeling himself before turning his attention grudgingly to Derek.

"Why are you even here, Derek? Did you wanna tackle me to the floor again? Because seriously, let me set up some pillows first."

Derek snarled. "I came here once I found my way out of the alleys and saw you were gone. Figured you might do something idiotic, and I was right." He took three long strides across the dark room, stopping only inches from Stiles' face, his gaze flickering back and forth between his eyes. "Why are you doing this?"

Stiles gaped at him, shocked by the quietness of the question. Before he had a chance to say anything, Derek suddenly dropped to his knees and put a hand on Stiles' thigh. He flinched as Derek's calloused fingers rubbed over the edge of a cut, but soon the pain was replaced by… Well, it wasn't replaced by anything. It was just disappearing quickly as black veins snaked their way up Derek's arms.

Stiles let out a small moan at the sensation, but when Derek put his other palm beside the first one he snapped out of his little trance and smacked the hands away.

"Don't. Please, I… I need to feel this."

Derek looked up, eyes wide and red completely gone. "No, you don't… Stiles, this isn't okay. This is so far from okay. Why are you doing this to yourself?" He stood up briefly, grabbing Stiles by the elbow and slowly leading him across the hall to the bathroom before he had a chance to respond.

Once inside, Derek sat him down on the toilet seat, busying himself with wetting a washcloth with warm water and dabbing some of the blood from Stiles' leg. It was silent for a few minutes; the scrape of the washcloth over skin being the only sound in the room before Stiles began to answer.

"It's the only way I can breathe, Derek. I feel this crushing weight on my heart, every day. There's only so many people I can lose before I have nothing left to live for, and at the rate my life is going right now I'll probably either be dead or everyone around me will be dead by the time I'm twenty." Everything that had been weighing on Stiles suddenly came flowing out of his mouth. He told Derek about losing Heather and his mom, reminded him of the fact that Jackson had died - not just once, but _twice_ - and the guilt over his father not trusting a word out of his mouth anymore. At this point, Stiles found himself taking a second to breathe before his rant continued.

"I've seen so many things, things that no one should ever have to see. I feel dead inside. Half the time I feel everything all at once and the other half I feel absolutely nothing. I'm terrified, all of the time. It's called hyper vigilance, did you know that? The crushing fear that something bad is always about to happen. And the worst part about that? I'm completely justifiable in feeling that way. I don't know if I'm going to wake up one day and find out that everyone I love got killed by some god-forsaken mythical creature of the night, because if that day ever comes I'm sure as hell not gonna stick around for the sunset."

Derek stopped wiping at the cuts, instead resting his palms on Stiles' knees as he continued to talk.

"I'm so scared. I don't care if that makes me sound weak, because it's the truth. You all have your abilities to fall back on, but me? I have _nothing_. Literally the only thing I could do in a fight is take a bullet for any of you, and I would do it in a heartbeat. For every single person in this pack. But some days I find myself wishing for a fight… just so I wouldn't have to be the one to end it. Because fuck, Derek... I'm tired. I'm so tired of always keeping one eye open, of never being able to relax. My panic attacks are back, and it's so sick that I actually look forward to them most nights because passing out from the lack of oxygen is the only way I can rest. I don't have the energy to do this anymore."

His eyes were glistening as he choked out the last sentence. "Derek, I don't want to _live_ anymore."

Derek's face was stoic and unreadable as sea green eyes stared into empty cinnamon, but Stiles heard the small, almost silent inhale of air at his confession. He was silent as he brought the wet cloth back to his cuts, wiping away the fresh blood with hands that seemed too gentle for his hard demeanor. Neither of them spoke while he applied ointment with a finger and covered the area with a large gauze pad. It registered in the back of Stiles' mind that the bandages he was using were getting bigger and bigger every week, but he couldn't keep his eyes off of Derek's hands moving gracefully over his legs as he finished taping the edges of everything down.

Derek's hands stilled over Stiles' legs, hesitating and hovering for a few moments before he set them back down on Stiles' knees. He looked up into blank whiskey eyes, searching for any glimpse of the strong, sarcastic teenager that used to drive him crazy with his inappropriate jokes and inability to stay out of the line of fire. Once or twice he thought he saw a flicker of something in his face, but it would be gone too fast for him to decipher what it was. Derek exhaled, dropping his head until his chin hit his chest.

"I wish none of this had ever happened to you… you're just a fucking kid. You should never have been dragged into this."

Stiles put a finger under his chin, lifting Derek's head up to look at him.

"It wasn't your fault Derek. Don't blame yourself for this too."

Stiles stood up from the toilet seat slowly, inching his way around Derek's body and padding out of the bathroom before Derek had a chance to adjust. When he finally got up and made his way to Stiles' room, the door was already shut and locked. The sound of muffled crying burned his ears as he stooped down to hole up in the closet adjacent to the room where he would wait out the night.

XxxX

Sunlight streamed through Stiles' window the next morning, rousing him into consciousness little by little. He let out a small groan, digging a palm into his eye socket and rubbing the sleepiness away before he froze and felt his stomach drop. The window shades weren't open when he fell asleep the night before; he distinctly remembered the complete darkness that had shrouded his room.

Stiles peered out through the slit of his unoccupied eyelid, exhaled sharply and then huffed when he saw Derek trying to pry his window pane open without making a sound.

"You know, you don't have to sneak out like that. My dad's not even home." Derek turned and simply blinked at him, and Stiles was suddenly hit with the vivid details of what happened last night. "_Oh_. Shit. Or you can. Go, I mean." Derek moved his head back to face the window, and Stiles saw his claws unsheathe as he reached a hand out to the bottom of the wooden frame. "Wait... did you stay here last night?"

Sharp nails creaked into the sill, knuckles white and stretched over the bone from Derek's grip.

"I had to make sure you wouldn't do it again. Wouldn't do… _that_ again."

He sat up in the bed, scrubbing his hands through his bedhead before closing his eyes and resting his face in his palms.

"I won't. I'm… I'm sorry you saw that. Saw me _like _that."

"That's not…." Derek's face scrunched exasperatedly before he brought his thumb and index finger up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Just don't do it again. The pack can tell something is up, and it's affecting their focus."

Stiles nodded blankly. The window opened and shut quickly; Derek just a blur as he slipped out with the grace only lycanthropy can establish.

If he had stayed long enough to smell the air, he might have noticed the distinct lack of any emotion coming from Stiles. Any emotion at all.

He knew he should be feeling something after that. Derek had a bad tendency to hollow out a nice hole in Stiles' chest whenever it came to pack business, but it was always temporary and fleeting. Stiles knew how important he was to the pack, and he knew how they really did care about him, even with their fucked up ways of showing it. They've proven themselves on more than one occasion.

He knew Derek was a stubborn asshole. It's the only way he knows how to cope, and Stiles accepted that long ago. Just because he knows it, though, doesn't mean it still sucks from time to time.

But honestly, the lack of emotion he felt at Derek's statement made him afraid more than anything else. He always knew the pack was there for him (possibly with the exception of Erica, even though he'd been diligently working on that) which was the main reason Derek's comments always stuck with him. He was scared of Derek's suggestions; scared of the possibility that he might lose that trust and dependency, terrified to the point that even a hint of being alone again could carve out a chunk of his heart. He didn't ever think he could stand to be without them. They filled something deep inside Stiles, something he hadn't even thought needed filling before he'd been accepted in.

The fact that he didn't feel scared of that loss anymore? Terrified him.

He was pretty sure he just lost his anchor.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles was a really good actor. Or at least, he was fairly certain he could be one.

After the night Derek found him, he gave himself a 100% character reversal. He smiled at Scott's jokes, made sarcastic comments left and right, and became everything he used to be when he was in front of people.

When he was alone, though, he was worse than ever.

He had fewer cuts now because at least some of Derek's words had sunk in. He saw that breaking the skin to feel pain was unnecessary; but stopping cold turkey wasn't something that was coming easy to him by any means. It was almost too easy to mask the scent of blood from the wolves: a brush of a certain strain of powdered aconite he acquired from Deaton on the pretense of research and the copper smell became completely undetectable.

That was nothing, though, compared to the blackouts.

Stiles realized that this wasn't normal. He understood completely that something was wrong, that he needed to see someone about this, but he eventually came to the conclusion that he just didn't care enough to do anything about it. It would be light out one moment while Stiles worked on a homework assignment at his desk and then dark the next when he found himself sitting out back in the grass. The shower would go from scalding to freezing in a matter of seconds, hair dry from having stayed out of the water stream so long.

Time was fleeting anyways. He couldn't bring himself to give a shit.

Stiles figured out one day that he wasn't eating enough when he went to climb out of his Jeep and the ground rushed up to meet him through a black haze. He woke up a few minutes later still on the floor of his garage, inhaling the scent of motor oil and mildew under his nose before righting himself and gingerly climbing up the steps to the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror.

Hipbones jutted out under pale skin, stretching it taut across his hollow stomach and accentuating every single bump and divet of his ribs. He brushed two fingers over the under- sensitized skin, shivering from the coolness of his fingers. Stiles had always been skinny, but he looked almost skeletal and hadn't even noticed the change.

He made an honest-to-god effort to start eating more, but the food tasted bland in his mouth and his appetite didn't allow him to get much down. The next time he went to the store he bought a few bottles of vitamin pills, hiding them in his dresser so that he would at least get some nutrients on the days he found he couldn't even manage a few bites.

The pack only began to notice because Scott eventually saw the sharp angles of his cheekbones and informed them during lunch one day, but when Stiles sat down between Lydia and Scott and laughed at some ridiculous joke while picking at the food on his tray it was quickly pushed to the back of everyone's minds.

Everyone's except Derek's, that is.

Because Derek noticed. Stiles felt the way his stare burned into him any time he was around. He watched Derek track him out of the corner of his eyes. He saw the way those eyes took in his appearance, calculating and studying the ways his baggy clothing drooped from certain areas of his body in ways that they never used to.

So Stiles should have been expecting it the next time Derek showed up in the dark shadows of his room almost three weeks after what he had taken to calling "The Incident".

"Always a pleasure, Oh-Broody-One. And what can I do for you today?"

"You could start by explaining why you look like you haven't eaten since the last time I was here."

"Subtlety looks good on you, Derek."

"Stop dicking around. When was the last time you ate?"

Stiles answered without missing a beat. "Lunch today. Roasted squirrel, made me think of you."

Derek looked furious, left eyebrow lifting incredulously before he clambered across Stiles bed, moving literally as ungracefully as a werewolf could before Stiles could do anything to stop him. He reached into the bedside table and pulled out the bottle of vitamins before sniffing them and scowling angrily back at Stiles.

"These smell like shit."

Stiles smarted. "Well excuse _me_, but there's no one keeping y-"

"Wanna try answering me truthfully this time?" Derek snarled, throwing the bottle on the bed before taking a step forward. "When. Did. You. Eat. Last."

"Glad to see we're back to grunting out our words. Personal backsliding, ladies and gentlemen."

Stiles heard the simultaneous slam and crack before he felt them, shouting as he dropped from Derek's now lax hands and slid down the wall he had just been forcefully acquainted with. His ribs were on fire as he turned his full-force glare up to Derek, only to flinch and lose most of his angry resolve as he saw the guy's face.

Derek was staring at his hands with a look of absolute shock and disgust, and Stiles was 100% sure that he wasn't imagining those tough fingers actually _shaking_.

"Der-"

Stiles was cut off as the Alpha dropped heavily to his knees in front of Stiles, ignoring his yelp of protest as Derek eased his shirt up and slid his hands straight to what Stiles could only assume from his pain level was a cracked rib.

Shaky hands skirted over his torso, only settling when they felt the hot bump of inflammation, and Stiles took that moment to look up at Derek and grit his teeth at the same time.

Because Derek looked absolutely _wrecked_, all traces of his usual mask gone as he began leeching Stiles' pain out through the palms of his hands. Stiles stared at him, watched his eyes burn bright red for a few seconds before fading out completely as he slowly withdrew his hands and shakily pulled Stiles' shirt back down.

The silence in the room was palpable.

"It was just because I'm thinner now. You didn't mean…" Stiles trailed off, bit his lip and looked down at the floor. "It wouldn't have been that bad if I hadn't lost weight. You didn't know."

Derek slid a leg out to stand up, never meeting Stiles' eyesight as he slipped out of the room and into the hallway. Stiles let out a groan, letting his head fall back against the wall as he closed his eyes.

His side really fucking hurt, but the look in Derek's eyes hurt way worse. The whole purpose of hiding this from everyone and acting normal was so that no one would hurt because of him, and so of course he would end up hurting the person who has already felt the most pain in his life.

Stiles peeked out through one eye as the floorboard by his door creaked, taking in Derek and the dark blue ice pack he was passing back and forth in his hands.

"I'm sorry."

Stiles had heard a pin drop louder than that apology.

"You know how much shit I would be giving you right now if I thought you actually meant to do that, Derek. I'm not blaming you here, I've taken the whole 'fragile human' thing to a whole new extreme over the last few weeks."

Derek handed him the icepack, waiting until Stiles had it pressed firmly against his ribs before he walked over to the bed and sunk down in front of it, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. Stiles bit his lip as he watched Derek's mouth, just barely making out the formation of numbers on his lips.

Well shit, Derek was counting.

Stiles didn't have any time to ponder that before Derek was speaking again, eyes still closed. "I forget sometimes." Pause. "I forget how good of a person you are."

Oh.

"Think you have some adjectives mixed up there, buddy."

Derek barked out a laugh, taking Stiles completely by surprise. "You don't even know, do you?"

"Know what?"

Radio silence as Derek moved closer, bringing his palm back up under Stiles' shirt and pressing it against the sore ribs. He watched the black veins snake up Derek's arm, transfixed on the patterns until too soon they were gone and Derek was pulling himself away and out of the door like a normal person for once.

He knew Derek was long gone, but he whispered anyway. "_Know what?_"

XxxX

The first bag of fast food showed up on his dresser the next day, still steaming and grease sporadically spotting the white paper. Stiles had to do a double take before subtly reaching into his closet to grab his bat while scanning the edges of his room.

Ten minutes and one full house search later, Stiles trudged back into his room and sat on the edge of his bed, eyeing the sack with utter disdain and suspicion. He might be quick to act sometimes when he shouldn't, but he also had plenty of times where logic actually came through for him.

A deep gnawing feeling was working its way through his gut when he felt the faint buzz of a text in his pants pocket. He wriggled his phone out and flicked on the screen, only to snort in exasperation.

**From: Dumbass 3:31PM**

_Eat the damn food Stiles_

Stiles pocketed the phone before standing up and grabbing the food, making a point to wag it at the window before settling down on the floor opposite the bed, out of sight.

He opened the bag to see a burger and…

Curly fries.

Two large orders of curly fries.

Stiles pulled out his phone and scrolled to Derek's contact info, changing the name back to normal as he picked off and ate the few fries he could manage on his practically non-existent appetite.

The next bag came two days later, sitting on his kitchen table as he lumbered in from a run. He had made it a little over two miles through the preserve before his head swam too much for him to keep going. He had to sit against a tree for the better part of an hour, but it was worth it. Running helped clear his head when the ADHD got to be too intense, and it helped distract him from the heaviness he felt in his chest, if only for an hour or two.

Chicken nuggets replaced the burger this time, but the two orders of curly fries were still nestled side by side next to the napkins.

Stiles made sure to eat a nugget and two fries before he guiltily mushed the rest down the garbage disposal and flushed it out with bleach to hide the lingering scent.

When the third bag comes three days after that, Stiles leaves it on his windowsill in favor of the bottle of Jack in the liquor cabinet and a long drive in the Jeep.

He had gotten home from school late in the evening after detention with Harris, who apparently decided that three days was the right amount of grieving time, when he stumbled into his room and right up to the glass. There was a thin film of condensation forming above the sac where the steam was still escaping out of the edges of the rolled-up paper, and Stiles drew a squiggly in it before unrolling the top.

The scent of grease made his stomach roll. He aimlessly dug around for a fry before pulling one out and taking a bite out of it, scrunching his nose and eyebrows at the nausea that was hitting him in waves. He froze abruptly, dropping the rest of the fry on the floor before sprinting across the hall and doubling over the toilet.

Nothing but stomach acid floated in the toilet after five minutes of heaving as Stiles reached an arm out to flush it before dropping his shaky body against the wall with a clunk. Tremors shook his hands as he tried to remember the last time he had eaten anything substantial. Was it two days ago? Three?

It had to have been the last bag Derek left him, because he can't remember eating anything since then.

_Well shit_, he had thought. It was that particular realization that sent him hastily down the stairs to grab the bottle before slipping into his Jeep, leading up to this probably monumentally stupid moment of parking about a hundred feet into the preserve and climbing out to walk to God knows where.

Devoid of his phone.

The forest air was starting to get chilly this late in the fall, but Stiles only yanked his jacket on tighter over his hoodie as he unscrewed the cap and took a long pull. The whiskey burned in his throat, but within minutes warmth was rushing through his veins and holding off some of the cold. He took another drink, stumbling only slightly over a tree root as he reached out his free hand to brush over the bark on his left.

Stiles loved the woods like this. The only sounds meeting his ears were the rustling of the trees and the chirp of crickets, and the smells of the city were replaced by grass and wood and a type of purity that only nature could produce. He didn't realize how bad he was stumbling anymore until one second he was stepping through a small patch of undergrowth and the next he was facedown in a tuft of grass.

Laughter bubbled up and out of his throat before he even thought about it, and he decided right then in that moment that he was never leaving that spot. Ever.

Three minutes later he was stumbling through mud, stopping only when the water from the river leaked into the toes of his shoes and into his socks. He fell backwards resolutely, landing on his butt in the muck and not giving a single shit as he raised the bottle to his lips and drank for what seemed like an eternity. The river, the same river where everything started, was rushing over his legs from the knees down where he had them kicked forward into the brink. It was freezing, it was harsh, but Stiles didn't care.

Darkness had started shadowing everything as he fell backwards completely, spilling a good portion of what was left in the bottle as his hand tilted back. Finally, Stiles didn't have to worry. He could lay here and not be scared of the darkness surrounding him, no matter how irrational that was. He could ignore the loneliness crushing in his chest every day, blame the vacation from his head on the numbing of the alcohol. In this moment, he could breathe without fear, even with the monsters all still out there.

Stiles wasn't sure what woke him first, the shivering or the fact that his heart was beating at an unsteady, slamming pace. Night had fallen completely but he still couldn't bring his head up from the ground, meaning that he was still just as drunk as he was when he passed out. He couldn't see the moon yet from the break in the trees over the river, so it couldn't be too late.

Everything that was still resting in the water was completely numb, so he grudgingly pulled them out until only a few inches of his feet remained in. The strain of moving must have been too much exertion, because only seconds later his eyelids were slipping shut once again to shut out the darkness.

"_Stiles, shit!"_

Rough hands shook his shoulder from far away, and Stiles heard voices murmuring as he pulled himself out of sleep and groggily squinted open his eyes. "Whasrong…"

Collective gasps of relief were heard from above him just before the palms that were now cradling his head delivered a hard smack across his face.

"Ow, what the hell!?"

Multiple pairs of hands reached out to pull Derek back as Stiles rubbed a hand over his smarting cheek and glared. Scott, Isaac and Boyd all held a different part of Derek's body as he attempted to manhandle his way out of their grips and back down to most likely hit Stiles again, judging from the feral look in his eyes.

"Where. The fuck. Have you been."

"Right here, dude. What the fuck is your problem?!"-

- is what Stiles meant to say.

"Righ' hur, du, wha's fuk yer prob'm?"

If Derek didn't look angry before, he looked absolutely murderous now.

"What's my- Stiles. It's four in the morning and you're alone, drunk, and soaking wet in the middle of the woods. On top of all that, you weren't answering any of our texts, and just in case you need reminding there is an _Alpha pack_ somewhere in town_ right now_, just looking for an excuse to kill any of us. Why the hell are you out here anyways?"

Everyone, including Stiles, gaped at Derek,

"What? Stop looking at me like that."

Scott spoke up. "Uh, it's just that I don't think any of us have heard you say that much at one time without making battle plans. Ever."

"H's righ'..."

Derek snapped his head down. "You shut up. As for the rest of you, go home. I'll get him back safely."

Stiles could just barely make out the shapes of Boyd, Isaac, Allison and Lydia passing to the side of him, the girls leaning down and whispering reassurances in his ear before hugging him (and in Lydia's case, lovingly thumping the back of his head) and walking out through the woods. Scott crouched down next to Stiles in the mud, glancing up at Derek and holding his angry gaze while speaking to Stiles at the same time.

"Stiles, do you want me to take you home?"

Derek let out an actual snarl as Stiles fell into a hysterical giggle-fit.

He was getting freezing cold mud all over himself as he rolled over from the force of his laughter, but he couldn't bring himself to stop for whatever reason. Eventually he calmed down enough to answer though, swiping a dirty hand across his face to wipe away a tear.

"S'okayy, Scott ol-pal-o'mine. 'can handle thuh big bad wulff…"

Scott glanced between the furious-looking Derek and his extremely drunk best friend one more time before sighing and squeezing his shoulder. "Just call me if you need anything, bro. And try to remember which speed-dial number I am this time before you accidentally drunk-dial your dad again…"

Both the boys let out a simultaneous shudder at the memory.

"Yhup, speeed dial two. Scotttyyy boyyy."

"Three, Stiles." He looked back up at Derek pointedly. "Three."

Derek nodded, already leaning down to wrap his arms under Stiles' knees and around his back to lift him up as Scott began trudging after the rest of the pack.

"Y'know m'a full-grown wom'n Derrr. Can walk n'my ownn."

Derek's snort of indignation rang out in the quiet of the forest. "You would fall flat on your face the second I put you down."

"S'not truee. Could run 'marthon, burfoot."

Stiles' world tilted 90 degrees as his legs were dropped to the ground, Derek's left hand pushing the center of his back to steady him on his feet. He took one step forward before making an intimate acquaintance between his face and the dirt.

"Assh'le." Stiles tried spitting to get the leaves out of his mouth. It wasn't working.

"Yeah, well you_ literally_ asked for it." Derek bent down again, offering his hand to Stiles who, in turn, batted at it weakly. He yelped as Derek then yanked him up, wrapped his arms around the backs of Stiles' thighs and swung him up in a fireman's carry.

Stiles let out a vicious moan. "Unghh, dude, bad 'dea…"

"Puking on my jacket would be a bad idea. So don't even think about it."

Stiles huffed angrily, murmuring slurred threats under his breath as he was carried through the forest and finally out onto a road. He could just barely make out his Jeep parked across the pavement from his line of sight between Derek's elbow and back before he was set down on his feet beside the car.

He only wobbled slightly as he reached for the door handle, opened it and swung himself in.

Well, more like over-shot himself in.

Seeing as he was now head-first in Derek's lap.

"Uhhh."

"Get up, Stiles. NOW."

"Right, yeah, up. Head outta your no-no square. Kapeish. Copasetic."

He had never seen someone shift from park to drive so angrily.

It was almost fifteen minutes before Derek spoke again. "You can't do things like this to us. We have been out looking for you for _hours_. Scott got worried after he came over and smelled the puke in your bathroom because it smelled like _blood_, Stiles, and then when you weren't answering your phone…" He shook his head, and Stiles could see the veins popping out in his forearms from his death-grip on the steering wheel. "When I smelled you by the river, do you know what I thought? I'll give you one good guess."

"Thank you f'r the food."

Derek looked momentarily startled at the topic change before schooling his expression into one of indifference. "You weren't eating. You needed food. Simple as that."

Stiles smiled up at him goofily from his sideways position in the seat. "You care 'bout me. Adm't it, ya big butthead."

"Not if Argent was pointing a gun at my head."

Stiles scoffed. "Yeah, right."

The car jolted forward as Derek hit the brakes, causing Stiles to smack his head on the dashboard in a moment of extreme deja-vu.

"We're here. Get out."

"Sucha gentleman."

Stiles stumbled out of the car, letting out an oomph as Derek's hand met the middle of his chest and pushed him back up.

"Can you maybe try not to kill yourself for five minutes here? Please?"

Stiles flinched like he had been hit. Derek's eyes went comically wide as he withdrew his hand and stepped back.

"I didn't… I, uh-"

Stiles brushed past him as he started walking to the house. "I get it, dude. S'okay. Freudian slip, we all have'm."

He stopped and turned right before the doorstep, making a beckoning gesture with his hand. "Well? You coming?"

XxxX

"Y'know I'm not an inv'lid!"

Derek stayed outside the bathroom door for all of three seconds until he heard the loud thump of Stiles falling over in the shower.

"Jesus fucking…"

Stiles let out a shriek as the door opened and Derek threw a pair of boxers at him.

"Put these on."

Maybe he shivered because of the shower temperature, maybe because of Derek's grumbly voice. Who knows.

"Why're you in m'bathroom?"

"Because you fail as an individual when you're drunk. Are they on yet?"

Stiles snorted as he fumbled to push his last leg through the wrong leg hole. "And how would you 'no that grumpybutt?"

"I wou- I don't-" Stiles watched Derek rub a hand roughly over his face as he huffed with what Drunk Stiles chose to believe was fondness buried under a concrete layer of exasperation. "Just put the damn briefs on, Stiles."

"Yessssir."

"Yeah, no. Don't call me that."

"Whaa, sir? S'hot…"

"No, it's annoying. So quit it."

"Yes sir."

"STILES."

"DERRRK"

Derek dug his claws into the flesh of his palms to calm himself before his wolf could make an appearance.

Although in hindsight, turning around and getting a faceful of junk probably wasn't helping the situation either.

"STILES, GODDAMN IT I ASKED YOU TO DO _ONE_ THING!"

The boy just broke out into a fit of some of the least manly giggles that Derek had ever heard before falling to the bottom of the tub again.

"I can't believe this is my life right now." Derek sunk to his knees by the edge of the bath, pointedly avoiding looking in the vicinity of Stiles' downtown as he worked his fingers under the elastic band on either sides of his hips and yanked the fabric up and over all offending areas. The kid just stared up at Derek through wet lashes, beaming with a smile that he hadn't seen from the boy in a long time.

He felt a little flutter in his chest as he stood up with a grunt, peeling his shirt and pants off with ease as he opened the shower curtain wider and stepped in behind Stiles.

"Derrrik, what're you doin?"

Stiles' usual pale face was flushed a light pink, probably from the steam rising around them from the floor.

Probably.

Derek reached his arms under Stiles' biceps, grabbing hold and lifting him to a semi-stable position on his feet. "I'm not going to let you fall and brain yourself after everything that almost happened tonight."

Siles' giggling stopped immediately, as if a flip had been switched.

Derek continued, grabbing the body wash from the ledge and squirting a dollop into his hands before he began making quick work of cleaning the mud from Stiles' shoulders and back. "Are you going to tell me why you were out there?"

Stiles was silent as Derek's hands worked their way down his sides in small circles, spirals of mucky white suds following his fingers as they applied light pressure over the dirty skin.

Stiles was silent as he tilted his head inches to the left, and Derek only let out a small gasp as the scent of arousal coming from the teenager hit him like a bag of bricks.

He pulled his hands off of him completely, curling his claws deep into his forearms to distract himself as he took a step back.

"Stiles."

The boy didn't move, and it was only then that Derek could smell the salt of tears breaking through the heady scent of desire.

"_Stiles._"

Derek grabbed hold of too-skinny arms and applied the barest hint of pressure to turn him around. Stiles' eyes, shining with tears, stared vacantly into Derek's before he squeezed his eyelids shut and jerked with a single silent sob.

Derek directed him under the shower nozzle, hurriedly rinsing off the majority of the dirt before he shut the water off and reached out to grab a towel from the rack. Stiles kept jerking sporadically with the force of holding the sobs in as Derek maneuvered them across the hall and into the bedroom.

Tears kept leaking out of closed eyes as Derek dutifully removed the soggy boxers and worked a pair of sweats up Stiles' legs, keeping his eyes on Stiles' own to wait for them to open.

They stayed closed until Stiles was under the blankets on his bed, Derek sitting next to him in a pair of borrowed pj's and the first shirt he pulled out of the dresser that looked like it could fit. He watched gray veins webbing up his arm out of the corner of his eyes, leeching out as much pain and nausea as possible without being detected before Stiles spoke.

"The food s'really nice of you. M'sorry I haven't been able t'eat much of it… You don't gotta keep wastin' money on me since I can't."

Derek pulled out as much pain as he could before he dropped his hand from Stiles' forearm, landing it gently on the bed beside his body. "Why can't you eat it?"

Stiles blinked wearily, words coming out in more of a mumble than anything. "I dunno… maybe s'the grease or somethin', I dunno…"

His breathing evened out into the calm rhythm of sleep, and the pinched lines of his face smoothed into one of the more relaxed expressions Derek had seen on him. He brought a hand up to Stiles' hair and ran it through the brunette tufts once before gathering his dirty clothes and slipping out of the window.

The next morning, Stiles woke up to a thermos of chicken noodle soup sitting on his bedside table, still steaming.

"Stiles, oh-child-of-mine, why did I get an email from your principal yesterday saying you weren't at school?"

Stiles choked on his cereal for a solid minute before John came over and started smacking him on the back.

"I, uh-" He coughed a few times to clear the remaining milk from his lungs. "I really wasn't feeling good. Projectile vomiting and everything; really, you're lucky you worked a double. It was vicious." Technically it wasn't a lie, Stiles' hangover had been atrocious. The soup had helped a lot though, once he had thrown up every last bit of alcohol left in his stomach and was able to keep the majority of it down.

Stiles was also 97% sure that it was homemade, but whatever, semantics.

The Sheriff walked over to the counter, picked out a mug from the cabinet and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Projectile vomiting, huh?"

The color seeped from Stiles' face as he remembered that he had never gotten around to replacing the bottle of whiskey that he had taken from his dad's collection. "Yeah, nasty stuff. Figured school wouldn't be the best idea. I mean, Harris already hates me enough as it is, wouldn't want to add 'puke on the bunsen burners' to his arsenal of reasons. Reasons which are entirely materialized in his own head, by the way."

Stiles let his stomach inch its way up from his feet as his dad's expression shifted from one of suspicion to concern. Maybe he hadn't noticed it missing yet…

"Is he treating you inappropriately? You know I will personally put the fear of God in him if he is…"

Stiles attempted to backtrack as quickly as possible. "No no no no, that's not it, I mean yeah he's a dick-"

"Language!"

"-sorry, jerk, but he just gives me an unnecessary amount of detentions. Nothing inappropriate in manners of legality." Not like he didn't hate the guy, but Stiles also didn't want to see him getting fired just for being a hard-ass. Maybe if he shifted his focus to another student he would say something, but while his attention was on him he knew he could take it. Adding more stress to his dad's life wasn't high up in his prerogatives right then.

"Okay, but if he ever does you tell me right away, no hiding anything because you think I can't handle the stress. I don't like that guy. At all." The Sheriff was glaring into his coffee cup, and Stiles had to bite back a grimace himself. Harris was the King of Dickland, but that didn't justify getting his job taken away.

"Yeah, dad, no one does. I don't even think Harris likes Harris." Stiles was still trying to figure that one out.

"Alright, just call me next time you're staying home so I have some warning?" John finished the dregs of his coffee before setting the mug in the sink and moving to grab his keys.

"I will next time, I promise. Be safe at work today, okay?"

John stopped before leaving the kitchen. "I always am, buddy."

Stiles slurped up the last of his milk as the door closed, and he all but raced to the cabinet he knew his dad stored the liquor in. There, right in the spot the old bottle had been, sat a new one with only about an ounce gone, just like the original.

Huh.

He didn't remember telling Derek anything about how much he had drank, but he could recall more than a few hazy moments where he rambled about anything and everything while slung over the Alpha's back.

Which is when it hit him that Derek went out and bought a $50 bottle of whiskey just so he wouldn't get in trouble. And then brought him soup.

The fact that his first thought was that Derek could be under some type of charity spell probably should have worried him more than it did, honestly.

Stiles smacked himself in the face when he turned and got a glance at the time on the clock, remembering that the pack was meeting in a little under ten minutes to discuss new developments with the Alpha Pack. He was just about to open the door when his stomach rolled violently and he ran to the sink, barely making it before the fruit loops he had eaten came up in a surge of rainbow mush and slowly dripped down the drain.

He made sure to grab the mouthwash from the bathroom and gargle before he shakily grabbed his keys and left in his Jeep.

XxxX

Stiles was halfway up the steps to Derek's loft when said werewolf and Scott bust out of the door and ran right past him.

"Uh, guys?!"

He quickly spun around, hopping down the first two steps before gaining his feet and kicking off in a sprint down the rest and out to where the two of them were yanking open the doors of his car.

"What the hell you two!?"

Derek started peeling off seat covers and lifting the lids of compartments as Scott spun around and grabbed Stiles by his shoulders.

"Are you hurt? Did they touch you?!"

"Did who touch me? Scott what the fuck is going on?"

Scott buried his face in Stiles' neck and inhaled deeply, causing Stiles to squirm and push at his best friend's admittedly firm chest. "I distinctly remember a talk we had about these personal space boundaries of yours a few weeks after you got the bite, Scott. Now talk to me like a regular person and _use your words_."

Scott kept running his hands over Stiles' torso as he checked for injury. "Ennis and Kali's scents are all over your car, dude. Like, _all fucking over_. We could smell it from the loft. Did they attack you?"

Stiles glanced over at Derek, who was still digging through the full interior of Roscoe. "I never even knew anyone was in it, I haven't driven since Thursday night. Who are they?"

Derek slammed the passenger side door hard before practically stomping over. "Part of the Alpha Pack. Along with Ethan, Aiden, and Deucalion, their leader."

Stiles snorted. "A leader in a _literal_ pack of Alphas? How does that even work?"

The look both of them shot him was definitely edging the line between absolutely fuming and extremely worried, which, props for the synchronicity, but it felt really unnecessary.

"You're not seeming to grasp the enormity of this situation, Stiles. They rubbed their scent all over the inside of your locked car, knowing you belong to another pack. Threatening the humans of a pack is like threatening someone's child, and no, don't give me that look. I'm not implying anything by that, I'm just trying to explain how serious this is. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they broke into your house too."

Stiles' face had grown paler and paler with each word Derek said, until finally he dropped back and fell to his butt on the ground. Air wasn't quite reaching his lungs, and panic started bubbling up exponentially quicker until Scott sat behind him and pulled him back into his chest, legs splayed out in a V on either side of him as gentle pressure was applied to his shoulders and he felt himself start to breathe regularly again.

Derek was staring down at them with an unreadable expression, but Stiles wasn't able to concentrate on anything other than the slow circles Scott was rubbing between his shoulderblades.

"Stiles, we're gonna go check out your house, okay? Your dad wasn't home," and Stiles could kiss him right then for knowing exactly what he was freaking out about, "and maybe they didn't even break in. Okay? No one got hurt. No one _will_ get hurt."

By that point everyone had amassed outside, staring down at the two of them with varying levels of concern. Scott stood up abruptly once Stiles' breathing had relaxed and offered his hand to him. He took it, trembling only slightly as he was lifted to his feet.

Scott's face darkened as he dropped his arm to his side, fixing his gaze on the sharp edges of Stiles' collarbones peeking out from underneath his hoodie. "Dude, you feel really light."

Stiles opened his mouth and froze, trying to think of the best way to answer when Derek spoke up. "We need to put a detail on Stiles. They've proven that they won't hesitate to use him for their own personal gain, so until we know what they want someone needs to be with him at all times."

"Uh, no."

Every head whipped to look incredulously at Stiles, and he would have laughed about Lydia's hair whipping Isaac in the face if not for the actual growls he was hearing from some of the wolves.

"What? Just because I don't want one of you guys breathing down my neck all the time doesn't mean any of you have a right to get all growly." The growls tapered off, but Stiles was starting to bristle. _"I can take care of myself."_

"No, you can't. Not from this."

Derek stepped forward then and grabbed his forearm, leading him away from the pack as they began speaking amongst themselves. He sat down on the curb in the parking lot, pulling Stiles down next to him and bringing his cellphone out of his pocket. Stiles watched as Derek scrolled through the first few photos in his gallery before selecting one and bringing the image up to Stiles' face.

He felt his empty stomach roll again and he leaned to the side, trying to rein in the gagging he felt at the back of his throat as he shoved at Derek. "Give a guy some fucking warning, dude!"

The picture was unfortunately well-lit, taken out somewhere in the woods during the day. A woman who looked to be in her late twenties was tied up against a tree, feet about a foot off the ground. She was extremely pale with dark brown hair, and her clothes were ripped to shreds, hanging off of her in tatters.

The thing that was vomit-worthy was the intestines spilling out of her abdominal cavity, where she had been nearly bisected from a gash connecting her left hipbone to her right.

Derek's hand was squeezing his shoulder, and Stiles took a few more deep breaths before the nausea subsided enough for him to sit back up. Derek was looking at him with a mix of worry and apprehension while Stiles dug the heels of his hands into his temples. "Okay, so. Sorry about that, I haven't really been feeling good today."

That was mostly the truth, but honestly Stiles wasn't sure he would ever truly get used to seeing the level of violence he would be encountering in this way of life.

Derek shut his phone off before sliding it back into his pocket. "I'm sorry, I didn't- I shouldn't have sprung that on you like that. But you did need to know what they're capable of."

Stiles peeked out from the cage of his forearms. "And what, besides _that_, are they capable of?"

The hesitation thing wasn't working for Stiles. "_Dude_."

Derek sighed before turning his body to face Stiles. "We've found three other people strung up like this. At first we thought it was the same as the other bodies popping up everywhere, but their methods are completely different."

The rest of the pack had joined them at this point, taking up different seating positions around the slab of concrete he was seated on. Scott sat down directly in front of him and picked up where Derek left off. "The old murders were done in a really specific way. Head bashed in, throat strangled and slashed while tied up to the tree, and they've been coming in sets of three."

Stiles managed to school his expression after remembering that he hadn't really been paying attention to much these last few months. Scott either didn't notice or didn't care, because he powered on before Stiles had a chance to process.

"The new murders, though- literally the only thing that's the same is the fact that they're strung up on the trees. Their clothes are ripped up and their intestines get slashed, but the most notable part is that they're always missing an organ. Every time."

Everyone in the pack grimaced at this, and Stiles would feel sorry for them if he wasn't feeling so pissed.

"And why, exactly- why has no one told me anything about this? Because I _really_ feel like this would have been something that I should have known about a lot earlier than-" he gestured wildly around himself "-_this_."

He hadn't realized he had stood up and started to walk until Derek's hand shot up to grip his forearm. "We didn't think you needed another thing to stress you out right now."

Stiles snorted. "You think this is stressful? You seem to forget that my _childhood best friend_ was one of those murder victims. More than anyone here, I think I want to get to the bottom of this. So please, don't leave me out. I can- I _need_ to handle this." He sunk back down, tucking his legs under him and exhaling all of the air he had been holding in. "Okay?"

Everyone looked hesitant, but to their credit they all nodded before slowly clambering to their feet. Stiles didn't move, leaving his head tucked in his hands and trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of everything that was his life anymore.

"You're still gonna have to stay with one of us, at least until we can check out your house."

He looked up at Derek, and then to the hand he was offering before taking it and pulling himself to his feet. "Fine. I'll just stay here. Just don't break anything, okay?" He said it more for Scott's benefit, and as if on cue the werewolf tripped over a shoelace and only just barely managed to keep himself from eating pavement. Stiles let out another long sigh before speaking to the retreating group. "You said patterns of three, right?" Scott nodded, so Stiles continued. "It's called the three-fold death, what's happening with the first murders. You might be dealing with human sacrifices, if the people in each group have something significant in common."

Seeing everyone look so shocked should not have given him as much pleasure as it did, but he'd take what he could get nowadays. "This is why we should include Stiles in things. I'm not as useless as you think."

Without waiting for a reply Stiles was already walking through the building foyer and starting his way up the first flight of stairs to the loft, Derek following only a few steps behind.

"You're not useless, you know."

Derek took a step ahead, sliding open the loft door and walking over to the kitchen area while Stiles rolled onto the couch. "I know that. It just sucks getting left out sometimes, you know?"

"Yeah."

Derek shut the fridge door before walking over to the couch and tossing Stiles a soda. Stiles mumbled his thanks, scootching over to let Derek sit on the opposite end of the couch.

"Why don't you want to tell them about what's going on with you?"

Stiles shrugged noncommittally. He knew exactly why.

When Derek's scrutinizing gaze didn't let up, Stiles let out a frustrated moan. "You're not gonna give up on this are you?" Derek almost looked smug in that moment, but it passed from his face just as quickly as it showed up. "Right, of course not. It's just- Don't you think we have way more important things to be worrying about right now? The killings, the Alphas- everything kind of takes precedence over my stupid emotions right now. I can't distract them with this when there's so much more going on, when people's _lives_ are in danger."

"_Your_ life is in danger." Derek had a tint of desperation in his voice, and the intensity made Stiles shiver. "They're not going to care about the Alphas or the sacrifices if they wake up and find you dead. Do you actually think that little of yourself?"

Stiles stared down at his soda can, twisting the aluminum tab back and forth to avoid looking up. "No, there are just other things I care about way more." The tab popped off, and Stiles dropped it into the now empty can. "You said it yourself Derek, they were probably in my house. If my dad had been home…" Stiles crumpled the can in his fist. "Finding them is more important. I won't lose my dad too."

Stiles wanted more than anything to stop talking, but the more he tried to stop the more was coming out. "My mom died of cancer when I was 8, did you know that? Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. It took her and my dad a long time to tell me, and by the time they did she only had a little over two months left. Do you wanna know what I did?" Stiles was shaking, twisting the remains of the can back and forth until it broke down the middle. "I ignored her. For two months, I ignored her. Dad tried to get me to go with him to visit her, but I would throw fucking tantrums. Like a two year-old. I left her alone to die for Two. Whole. Months." He knew his voice was breaking and he felt tears slipping down his cheeks, but he couldn't stop. "By the time I got over myself and went to see her, she only lasted for two more weeks. She was so run down from worrying about me, she couldn't even fight off the damn _flu_. We could have had so much more time if I had just been there, supporting her. Giving her a reason to fight. But I wasn't, and she died. Dad didn't even get to say goodbye, because he was at work. She was his soulmate, and _he didn't even get to say goodbye_. Tell me how that's even fair?"

Stiles looked up through tear-soaked lashes at Derek. He looked wrecked, and Stiles didn't have to wonder why. He knew firsthand how unfair it was.

Derek's gaze was fixed on Stiles' hands though, which is when he felt a sharp stab of pain coming from his palm. He glanced down and groaned.

Stiles had been clutching the broken halves of the can without realizing it, and the sharp edges had sliced into his palms in a few places. A drop of blood made its way out of his clenched fist, and he stood up abruptly before dropping the cans to the floor. "I need to…" Stiles gestured to the staircase, trying to portray _bathroom_, and Derek nodded numbly.

He crossed his arms over his chest as he walked upstairs, trying to keep himself from leaving his blood everywhere. Scent was everything to a werewolf, and it wasn't his place to mark up Derek's place with his own. He managed to clean up his hands pretty well, improvising a bandage with a clean towel wrapped around the cut that was still bleeding.

He took a second to look at himself in the mirror, leaning over the sink and balancing his knuckles on the corners of the porcelain. His eyes were swollen and red, along with patches of pink ghosting over his pale neck and the sticky feeling of drying tears over his cheeks. He turned the faucet on and splashed some water on his face before stepping out into the hallway.

Stiles could hear Derek downstairs moving around in the kitchen, so he took the opportunity to walk around a little bit. There were only four other rooms on the second floor, but only one had its door open. He inhaled sharply when he stepped up to it and ran his fingers down the door frame.

This was Derek's room, the same one he'd been taken to after the river incident. He was hit with the memory of the water in his lungs and the anger of failure from the next day just as he felt a presence behind him.

"Do you still want to kill yourself?"

Stiles turned around. "I don't know." He paused. "It's not out of the question."

Derek nodded before he slid down the wall opposite to Stiles, circled his arms around his knees and clasped his hands in the front. "When Laura and I moved to New York, the first thing she did after getting us financially settled and moved into an apartment was to go and buy a full sprig of one of the more toxic strains of wolfsbane." Stiles perked an eyebrow at that, but Derek kept talking. "She sent me off to go to a job interview before she shoved the whole thing down her throat and curled up in the bathtub to die. I came back early, but when I got there she wasn't breathing. Her heart was still beating, but I could barely hear it." His voice was shakier than Stiles had ever heard it, and his own heart clenched. "I saw a bud of it on the floor and put two and two together, but I didn't have enough of the plant to burn a big enough antidote for the amount she had swallowed. So I put her on her back and used one of my claws to cut into her stomach from the outside and pull the whole sprig out."

Stiles sunk down the wall across from him before covering one of Derek's feet with his own. The guy apparently couldn't get a fucking break in life, and it felt like a kick to the gut.

"I burned the ashes and pushed them into the cut and waited for her to wake up. And when she did… When she did, and when the gash finished healing, the first thing she said to me was that I should have let her die."

Stiles was going to be sick. He barely made it to the toilet before he heaved, feebly knocking the door shut behind him with a foot. Shame filled him to the core, because he remembered. He remembered saying those exact same words to Derek when he woke up, and didn't even think twice about it. He leaned back and wiped his mouth just as Derek creaked opened the door and sat behind him on the tub.

"I'm so sorry. God, I'm so fucking- I'm sorry." Derek shushed him, offering his hand and Stiles took it with his less injured one, eager to feel warmth in some part of his body again. He pulled Stiles to his feet and led him out of the bathroom, down the stairs and back onto the couch.

"I didn't tell you that to make you feel bad. I told you so you'd know that I understand how you're feeling, and that I'm not going to push you to tell the others. But Stiles, I want you to call me before you do anything in the future. If you want to cut again, you call me first. If you're feeling nauseous, call me." Derek shifted, locking eyes with him. "If you're thinking about ending it, fucking_ call me_. I'll answer."

Stiles sucked his bottom lip in between his teeth and bit hard, trying to keep his emotions in check as he nodded shakily.

He didn't know why Derek cared, or why he bothered, other than the obvious reasons. He didn't know, but he desperately wanted to.

They talked until the evening about a lot of things. Derek's family, Stiles' mom, the pack, Stiles' fears for his dad, where Derek went to college- everything and anything was up for discussion. Stiles didn't have to ask to know that some of the things Derek was telling him were things he had never told anyone before. When Derek started talking about Kate and told Stiles what she had done to him, Stiles had grabbed his clenched hand and held it until he could put his claws away. Derek could feel the anger rolling off of Stiles but he could tell he was tempering his reactions for Derek's sake. By the time the phone rang on the coffee table, both of them were hoarse from speaking so much and pressed side to side on the couch.

Stiles grabbed the phone, barely letting "She-Wolf" play out for even a second in his haste to answer. Derek raised an eyebrow at him as if to say _really?_ Stiles just shrugged as he hit accept. "Hey Erica… Yeah… Fuck, so they were there. Damnit. Okay, my dad works a double tonight, so just…" Derek made a _give it here_ gesture, and Stiles snorted. "Okay, big bad Alpha wants to talk, so here ya go." Stiles handed over the phone, and listened to Derek quickly work out a plan for them to track the scent with. When he hung up, Stiles was mid-stretch and he brought his arms down just as Derek made a small choking sound.

This time Stiles gave him the eyebrow, and Derek simply said "Sore throat."

Stiles smirked before heading to the kitchen, grabbing two water bottles from the fridge and tossing one at Derek.

"So I'm guessing I'm not allowed to go home tonight?"

Derek took an obnoxiously long sip before answering. "Yeah, it's best if you stay somewhere else while they track the scent. I could take you over to Mrs. McCall's, if you wanted."

Stiles looked down at his wrapped hands as he picked at a thumbnail. "Or maybe I could… stay here?" He feigned nonchalance as he looked up at Derek, but the Alpha was already standing up and walking to the staircase. Huh.

Stiles padded after him, up the steps and over to the door across from Derek's. "It used to be Isaac's. I never got around to stripping the bed, but they were new sheets anyways, so. Yeah."

In true Derek-manner, he then awkwardly nodded his head and turned to open his own door. Stiles stared as the door shut, trying to make his brain stop spinning before he turned and walked into Isaac's old room.

It didn't slip past Stiles' attention that the room was the biggest one in the loft, with the exception of the downstairs. There was a queen bed pushed up against the far wall, with a dark green bedspread and an expensive looking flatscreen TV bolted to the wall in front of the bed. Everything looked expensive and well picked out, and it made Stiles' chest _ache._

Because Derek did so much for his pack and the people he let into his tiny circle of trust, and it took practically nothing for Isaac to throw it all back in his face and switch his allegiances to Scott. Derek was trying _so hard,_ and no one even bothered to notice.

Stiles walked over to the dresser, a massive antique-looking piece, and rummaged through the drawers until he found a pair of pajama pants and a sleep shirt to put on. He got dressed hastily before he slipped across the hall and cautiously opened the door to Derek's room, stepping in and shutting it deftly. He stood with his back to the door and clasped his hands to his wrists behind him hesitantly.

Derek was standing beside the bed, holding a book in his right hand and his shirt in his left. He was dressed in only a loose-fitting pair of dark gray sweatpants and looking right at Stiles, wearing the same unreadable expression that confused the kid to no end, but he hadn't moved or spoken as they stared at each other from across the room.

Stiles could feel his heart racing in his chest, but he didn't know why he was so nervous about this. Maybe he was scared of rejection, or maybe retribution, but then Derek raised an eyebrow at him and the gesture was so damn familiar and safe that it broke through Stiles' defenses.

He pushed off the door, advancing slowly to the bed without taking his eyes off of Derek for a second. Derek watched him approach, moving slowly enough to give Derek time to make a protest. But then Stiles was at the side of the bed, and Derek's gaze felt like burning heat in his gut, but he didn't make any move to stop him.

Stiles lifted the covers and slid under them, heartbeat pounding again as he settled on his side, facing the opposite direction as Derek.

He closed his eyes right before he heard the _click_ of the lamp being shut off and Derek's side of the bed dipping down. Stiles let out a breath that he hadn't even known he was holding as he listened to Derek shuffling around for positioning before he lifted his lips in a small smile and let himself start to drift off.

Beside him, Derek faced the long expanse of Stiles' back, only inches separating him from the warmth he craved to be pressed against his skin. It was a whole new brand of torture for him, but Derek couldn't find it in himself to care this time. He listened to every beat of Stiles' rapid heartbeat until it slowed into the rhythm of sleep before closing his eyes and smiling into the darkness.

XxxX

Stiles felt really good.

Like, _really_ good.

Waves of pleasure rolling-through-his-body good.

He was grinding his hips down sleepily, gasping each time his dick dug against the hard mass between his parted legs. Something moved behind his back, pressing into the dip of his spine and rolling his hips down just as the body beneath him pushed up and he moaned, mouthing at the warm skin and licking over the thick stubble. The fingers dug into his lower back and pushed down again, and Stiles flat-out keened at the arousal and want flooding into his groin.

He started to roll his hips down again when he heard a single, shaky exhale come from right above his ear.

From Derek's mouth.

In Derek's bed.

_From Derek's mouth._

Stiles went from barely conscious to wide-awake in 0.6 seconds as he flailed from Derek's grip and landed with a hard _thud_ on the cold floor.

The werewolf shot up like a bullet, eyes glowing a deep red as he stole them around the room before he took a deep breath and stared straight down at his dick.

Which was making a huge tent under his sweatpants.

Stiles gulped, because _holy shit_, he had almost just gotten off with Derek. Who was now staring at him, down his chest, down to his… oh.

He scrambled to his feet, breaking Derek's gaze as he feebly attempted to cover his raging boner with just his hands.

"I, uh. I'll just." Stiles gestured at the door, backed up until he could grab the doorknob and then slipped out of the room as quickly as he could. He shut it behind him and leaned against the wood, slowing his breathing down before he took the ten steps to the bathroom.

Yeah, so apparently shame and humiliation wasn't the trick to turn himself off, because after that horribly awkward encounter he was still hard as a rock. He dug the heel of his hand into his erection to relieve some pressure and groaned when sparks of pleasure shot through him.

Stiles sucked in a breath when he heard the door to Derek's room open, and held it while the Alpha took what he guessed was a tentative step forward into the hall. He waited, listening to the silence until he finally exhaled softly as the footfalls moved further and further away. He heard the slight clang of metal indicating Derek was heading down the stairs, and waited until he could hear movement below him before he pressed his hand down again.

It was wrong. It was so wrong, but Stiles wouldn't be leaving the bathroom anytime soon if he didn't.

He tucked his fingers into the waistband of his pajama pants and boxers before shucking them down to his ankles and taking his throbbing dick in his hand. A bottle of lotion sat next to a tub of Derek's hair product on the sink, and Stiles quickly squirted some into his hand before grabbing his dick again and starting to pump.

He realized after a minute that he was panting everytime he flicked his wrist at the end of his strokes, but he didn't bother to shoot his other hand to his mouth until little moans started slipping from his lips. His hips jerked forward as he gave his cock a tight squeeze, causing the door to rattle obscenely behind his back.

He couldn't bring himself to care, though, werewolf hearing be damned. He was getting hornier and hornier just thinking about it, knowing that Derek knew exactly what he was doing from the little sounds drifting down to him from the bathroom. It was that thought that caused his hips to stutter once, twice, before he was spilling all over his fist with a strangled moan.

Stiles let his head knock back against the door as he rode out the last lingering ebbs of his orgasm and groaned for a completely different reason.

For one thing, he was going to have to pass by Derek if he wanted to leave, and now that the heat of the moment had passed he understood how little he did to hide what just happened. It's not like Derek won't smell the evidence the minute he climbs back up the stairs, but knowing that he heard the whole process isn't as hot as it was just minutes ago. Frankly, he was seriously worried that he just ruined whatever tentative friendship they seemed to have established the day before.

Truthfully though? He didn't expect it to last anyways. He was broken, fucked up, and generally the opposite of what Derek needed.

Doesn't mean he didn't get his hopes up.

Stiles walked over to the sink, cleaning the mess from his hands methodically before hiking his pants back up and strutting back to Isaac's room to put his old clothes on. He took a steadying moment to just breathe before he nodded to himself and took the staircase downstairs.

Derek was obscured mostly behind the island in the kitchen, scraping scrambled eggs into a container before shutting it tightly and turning on a dime to pour some coffee into a thermos. He gestured Stiles over with a finger, looking increasingly more pained with each step he took forwards.

"The pack tracked the scent far away from your house, so you're good to go home. Put up mountain ash barriers around the entrances and windows though, just to be safe." Derek picked up the small tupperware box holding the eggs and pushed it, along with the thermos, across the island before grunting. "Here."

Stiles picked up the containers and reached over to grab a fork from the drawer behind Derek, but halted when the werewolf jerked away from his reach and edged farther around the table. Stiles withdrew his hand slowly, while his mind suddenly exploded with all the facts he learned about placating predators over the last year as he took a few precautionary steps backwards. Derek relaxed his stance and smirked at his reaction, and Stiles couldn't help but stick out his tongue petulantly after getting over his initial wariness.

"Well, thanks for this, and… you know."

Derek's smirk smoothed out into an actual reserved smile and Stiles had to wonder if maybe he had gas or something. He was betting on gas.

"Just be safe. Take precautions. And remember what I said, okay?"

Stiles barked out a laugh. "You do realize how much you talked yesterday, right? I'm gonna need some specifics here."

Derek rolled his eyes overdramatically, and knowing it was just for his amusement melted away some of the anxiety that had built in Stiles over the last few minutes. "Just remember to call."

Stiles backed up, grabbing the food from the island and his keys from the coffee table as he waved two fingers in goodbye. "You're on speed dial, big guy."

With that he turned around and left, shutting the loft door behind him. Derek let out the massive gust of air he had been holding onto in a rush, feeling shakier on his feet than he had in a while. He deliberated on ethics for all of two minutes before he hurriedly unzipped his pants and leaned back against the counter to take care of the erection he'd been sporting since Stiles ground against him in bed.

That kid was going to _kill_ him.

XxxX

In the two weeks since Stiles had been to Derek's loft, so many things had happened that he felt like a year had passed without him. The beginning of December brought snow, and lots of it. Beacon Hills hadn't seen a blizzard this bad in years, and all of the streets were practically impassable from the pile-up of the dirty slush.

Stiles was feeling the cold more than usual; his thinness and general lack of body fat were keeping him from retaining any bit of heat. It would have been - _should_ have been - more disconcerting, but he just added a few extra layers and hid from people's worries under the bulk. There were more pressing matters at hand that required immediate attention.

Two more bodies had been discovered, one bearing the original ritualistic signature of the first killer, and the other displaying the more violent tendencies of the second. Stiles had begun to tack up everything and anything he could about human sacrifices on the large board on his wall, using a ball of his mom's red knitting yarn to connect old case files to ancient bibles and documents across the cork.

The pack had been out nightly, tracking the scents of the alpha pack through the forest. That's how they unknowingly stumbled across the two bodies, catching the cloying scent of blood nearby one of the divergent trails for one and actually seeing the girl strung up from a distance for the other. Scott always made sure to text Stiles pictures before someone called in the anonymous tip to the Sheriff's Department, and Derek had texted him a few times since the night at his loft, but so far no one had had the time to actually come by and talk to Stiles in person.

It was somewhat a blessing in disguise.

His blackouts had been recurring with an alarming frequency over the last week or so, hitting him unexpectedly and sometimes dangerously. One of the times had Stiles waking up to somewhere in the forest, bare feet freezing in the small stream he had been standing in. He had to use his cellphone light and GPS to navigate through the woods, and thankfully he only ended up being a few hundred feet out.

With every new blackout came the ever-increasing feeling of what little was left of his control slipping away. He hated it; hated the feeling of not knowing what his body was doing without him at the wheel. He hated the thought that he could hurt someone in that state, that he could even possibly kill someone if his body perceived them as a threat. It made Stiles feel sick to the depths of his being.

Maybe in the past he could have found a way around it, but now this depression was taking root from his terror and it was all he could do to even _breathe_ anymore. It felt just as soul-crushing as it had back at the river, if not worse. He still couldn't eat much, but now that had dwindled to practically nothing. He stared long and hard at the drawer by his bed every night, trying to remember what it felt like to be in charge of himself. To know everything he was capable of.

The memory was slipping away more and more every time he woke up gasping somewhere far from where he had just been. It was terrifying how quickly it finally disappeared. Two weeks had passed since he had felt any semblance of hope. Two weeks while his resolve crumbled.

The truck swam into focus through the black just in time for Stiles to hear the frantic honking from the driver. He cursed and swerved the Jeep, narrowly avoiding the collision but unable to prevent his wheels from hitting a patch of ice as he skidded off the road.

Stiles slammed his foot on the brakes, panting as he jolted to a stop only inches from the telephone pole in front of him. He tried to catch his breath as he shifted into park, but the panting quickly turned into hyperventilating as he slid down in the seat and took his head in his hands.

He stared out the windshield into the white blanket of snow, getting exponentially more worked up as his vision started going black and reminding him of why he had almost killed someone in the first place. He shot his hands forward, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles as he forced himself to breathe.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

By the time the snow had calmed down somewhat, his body had stopped shaking enough for him to drive, so Stiles cautiously backed up and made his way home.

If someone was to ask him about it later, he would say he could actually feel the moment the last of his hope of getting out of his despondency alive slipped away. Something twisted deep inside of him on the ride home, something dark and malicious and evil. He had almost killed someone. It wasn't speculation anymore, the thing in his gut pulled at him and told him he could do it. Would do it, if he didn't stop himself.

The dark rolled through his body in a fog, extinguishing any remaining light still flaring inside him as he got closer and closer to his house. It felt wrong to even call it home anymore. Home wasn't a happy place with family photographs, the smell of familiar lavender perfume clinging stubbornly to old surfaces and the love of a father.

Home was at the bottom of the river.

He finally pulled into the driveway, barely managing to turn off the ignition before crawling out the door and making his feet take him inside. The Sheriff wasn't home, wouldn't be home until the next morning. That helped Stiles to climb upstairs, shut and lock the door before swiping a line through the mountain ash on his sill. If he couldn't finish this, the Alphas hopefully would. Stiles sat on the bed and rested his fingers on the wooden knob of the bedside drawer.

He wrapped them around it and pulled.

The false bottom was easy to wiggle out; just a simple panel of wood situated underneath an old Adderall bottle and a bottle of lube. It would keep up appearances if his Dad decided to check for drugs or other things since the trust between them was barely there, if not non-existent anymore. Finding a half-empty tub of lube would be better than finding the thin scalpel he had swiped from the hospital last time he was there and hidden under the bottom.

Stiles pulled the line of metal out, not even bothering to replace the panel before he fell backwards against the pillows and held it to his chest. His hands were shaking and his lungs weren't filling right, but it was okay. It was all okay, he didn't need to worry about any more panic attacks or blackouts or disappointments.

It was okay. He was ready.

He wasn't ready.

A sob burst through his lips as his hands trembled. He tried pushing them down, angling the tip of the blade towards his heart, but he couldn't go any further. He couldn't move them down and he was shouting with frustration, tears streaming freely down his reddening face, but he couldn't go that final inch. Terror over his body, his capabilities, his deepest nightmares- It all wracked through him like swells of an earthquake, and he screamed as he pulled the metal down over his chest and sliced it across the thin skin of his forearm in one long pull.

He stopped screaming.

The silence was eerie.

All Stiles could hear was the pounding of his pulse in his ears, slowing with every beat as calm flooded his veins and pulled him back into a state of fragile relaxation. Stiles gradually opened his eyes as warmth dripped down his skin, drops hitting the bed with barely audible _thwaks_ of liquid against fabric. The pain felt better than any climax, radiating up his arm and into his fucking _soul._

It was amazing. Exhilarating. Everything he needed in that moment.

He raised his hand, perched it above the skin.

Scott.

_Dig. Pull._

Lyds.

_Dig. Pull._

Dad.

_Dig. Pull._

Der-

He froze.

_Fuck._

Shaky fingers reached over, grabbed the phone from beside his hip. Pressed 2. Dial.

Two rings. _"Hello?"_

"Heyy, buddy." His words were slurred, drunk off of the pain.

"_Stiles, what's wrong? You don't sound right."_

Stiles laughed. "Yeah, I suppose." Derek tried to talk, but Stiles cut him off in the middle of the first word. "Listen, so remember that thing you told me to do a few weeks back?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then: _"Shit. I'm on my way, okay? Now what's going on? Talk to me."_

Stiles ran his hand down his face, not even flinching as blood smeared across his cheek. "Things might have been a little crappy for me these last two weeks." He reached down and picked the scalpel back up, cradling his phone between his ear and shoulder as he pulled his sweatshirt up and rested the blade against his stomach. "Like, really crappy." He cut a shallow scratch from hipbone to hipbone, mimicking the slice that all of the gorier murder victims ended up sporting.

"_How exactly? What's been going on?"_ Derek sounded out of breath, and Stiles heard a car door slam and the rev of an engine. He moved the blade up to his chest, circling the fabric over his heart with the tip. Teasing.

"Oh, you know, just... stuff." Stiles' voice broke, and he knew by the inhale on Derek's end that he heard it loud and clear.

"_Like what? C'mon, Stiles."_

He was crying again. He didn't care. "I have to do this right now, Der, I'm sorry." He was whispering and shaking and regretting everything and Derek was pleading over the phone, but he brought the scalpel down over his arm and pulled anyways. Red beaded up out of the cut before slipping down the skin and joining with the other blood trails running off the edge.

"_Stiles, fuck, okay you're gonna be okay, I'm almost there, can you hear me? I'm almost there."_

Stiles was crying into the phone, whispering apologies again and again as he made another cut below the first. He had just lined up the metal to go again when the call abruptly ended and his window slid open, and then Derek was just there, pale-faced and horrified as he took everything in.

It wasn't even a second later before the scalpel was plucked from his hand and Derek was wrapping him in his arms. "You scared the _shit_ out of me." Derek grabbed his forearm, squeezing just hard enough to apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding while simultaneously siphoning away the worst of the pain.

Stiles let everything go. He tucked his head into Derek's neck, sobbing as he told him about everything. And Derek listened, only letting Stiles go long enough to grab the first aid supplies from the hall bathroom before he was back and maneuvering Stiles onto his lap in a seated bridal hold.

He ran out of words a little after Derek finished patching him up, and they sat in comfortable silence until Stiles shifted, settling his head down onto Derek's chest.

"Hey, do you want me to get you something to eat?"

Stiles didn't reply, and it was only then when Derek realized that the kid had actually fallen asleep sitting up. Derek stood slowly, using the toe of Stiles' shoe to edge the sheets back before depositing him on the bed. He unlaced each shoe, sliding them off gently as to not wake Stiles before pulling the blankets up over him and resting them at his shoulders. Derek ran a hand through Stiles' hair, rubbing a thumb over the crease worrying between his eyebrows to relax it before standing to remove the blood-stained comforter and medical supplies and stash them in his car. He moved it down the street, away from the haphazard park job he had left it in in the Sheriff's driveway.

By the time he climbed back through the window, Stiles had started to rouse and was blinking around the room blearily before his eyes settled on Derek. "Will you stay?"

Derek nodded before walking over, slipping his own shoes off before sliding under the covers behind Stiles and pulling him close. The boy made a content noise in the back of his throat before drifting off again, and Derek just squeezed his eyes shut before burying his face in Stiles' hair.

He didn't know why he felt so affected by Stiles. He practically made it his damn job to not care about people, and yet Stiles pushed and pushed through his defenses until they completely fucking_ shattered._ Not even Kate had worked her way in this deep, and they had dated for almost a year. He and Stiles weren't even_ together._

He wanted it, though. Now that Stiles was in, all Derek wanted was to be able to wake up next to him, kiss his stupidly perfect mouth, trace the constellations of his moles while he slept.

He didn't want anything as badly as he wanted Stiles to be his, to be safe, to be happy.

Derek laid next to Stiles overnight, holding him tighter when a nightmare came and lulling him back to sleep when it jolted him awake in a panic. The sun had barely peeked over the tree line when Derek delicately untangled himself from Stiles, slipped his shoes on and walked over to the computer desk. He grabbed a pad of sticky notes and a pen, wrote a quick note and stuck it under Stiles' pillow before he slid the window open and climbed out.

It would take nearly three weeks for Stiles to find it, since it was the next day that everything went to hell.


End file.
